What it Means To Be Shinobi
by bhanesidhe
Summary: After a three year lapse, the surviving members of cell seven rediscover if they know what it means to be Shinobi. Content Mature. TIMEJUMP based, AU ArtFic. narutoXsakuraXsasuke
1. Chapter One: Turnabout is FairPlay

WARNINGS: Spoilers for everything before Naruto Episode 135 Chapter 238. Bastardizer of everything after.

There are illustrationd for this chapter; ohshushDOTcom/fandom/images/superfluous-fluff/2bsch01DOThtml

AUTHOR NOTES: Dedicated to Ukki-kun, who died for our cheap thrills.

DISCLAIMER: Kishimoto-sensei, Shonen Magazine and all sorts of people at VIZ own Naruto and the premises therein. This is a work of fan-created fiction intended solely for amusement. No infringements intended._  
_

_

* * *

"Don't be defeated by DNA."  
_- Title Page, Volume 1; Chapter 9

* * *

"_You'd kill yourself for recognition,  
Kill yourself to never, ever stop   
You broke another mirror,  
You're turning into something you are not"_  
- Radiohead, High and Dry 

**

* * *

Chapter One: Turnabout is Fair-Play**

As far back as anyone could remember Naruto's ambition was to become Hokage, the Fire Shadow, champion of the Village of Hidden Leaf, and an acknowledged master Shinobi who surpassed those who previously inherited the name, some one to look up to, someone to admire.

Failing ninja academy hadn't proven to be a setback, neither had learning that he housed an indestructible demon under a layer of skin and bones and an impressive swirling seal. In the face of adversity he held true to his -_Nindou_-, the 'way of the Ninja' he had adapted toward every failure he committed. Through the rejections of the only girl who ever held his interest. Through the betrayal of the only friend he considered as close as kin. Through the trails and training his demented mentor saw fit to put him through. He had been known as 'dead last' in everything he endeavored at, yet with each failing his conviction grew. This made him stronger, he assured himself, this made him more admirable, more heroic. It proved him to be more than a demon-vessel and a fool. But in all his sixteen years that he coveted his -_Nindou_- nothing prepared him for failure. While the failing made him human, it also made him weak. Anyone can be manipulated in their weakest state, regardless of how steadfast their conviction, even a future Hokage. It didn't help that Naruto always learned things the hard way.

"Don't die," muttered Naruto, through notably extended canines.

It wasn't that he expected a reply. When a person had their arms and legs broken, their breastplate shattered, their skin flayed off the majority of their person and 'deathblow' sort of head wound going on, there was little by way of physical communication they could offer up. None of it reliable.

The former Leaf Nîn supported by Naruto's shaky embrace calculated the quickly diminishing minutes of his life, refraining from a demeaning gurgle or death-rattle-like cough.

"Naruto--" he started dryly.

Fierce tearstained crimson eyes nailed him with a warning glare. If his jaw hadn't been dislocated he would have smiled at the brazen act of earnestness. Some things never changed.

Naruto slowly laid Kabuto's frame out on the woodland ground. His breath hitched overhead and Kabuto chanced a glance at him. No, didn't matter, no glasses meant he could not see the man's face unless it came up good and close. Naruto wiped at his face with the back of his hand, effectively smudging his features further and making a smear of wet canvas, whiskers thick and eyes the color of liquid dawn.

"I think," the traitor mumbled low and to himself, "I got lost . . . maybe."

"Idiot," objected Naruto, uncommonly calm for someone in his current situation. Which was mid-panic, too emotional, in unfamiliar territory. Too far from aid, too near to uncertainty. "We're not lost. We're going home, now."

Kabuto would have laughed had his lungs still been capable of taking in enough air. He hadn't been talking about their wandering. His unfocused eyes softened, blinking in slow considering measures. He knew how to express kindness and cruelty with just the turn of his mouth and a look; he was a natural at espionage after all, adapting in enemy territory. Fortunately for him, it came easier than breathing. "Naruto-kun."

"What?" he half-snarled. It sounded to Kabuto's like a wordless and proud sort of pleading. He had heard many desperate frightened men plead for their lives. It was a rare thing to hear an unbeatable Shinobi implore openly for a childish ideal. It was regrettable what he meant to do; destroying a dream was more commanding a maneuver. Lose the battle but win the war. Regrettable to think, despite his own better judgment that he liked the kid, too. Sunshine hair and summer bright eyes, he reeked of Konoha without ever having been accepted there. It was some sort of home without ever intending on being. He could relate to that.

"You're still so headstrong," answered Kabuto, his voice light with amusement and weariness. "It's good that some people don't change," he explained further. Blurs fire and sky that made a portrait of Naruto's troubled face shifted.

"Yeah, I guess," he muttered beside him. Naruto moved around aimlessly, careful not to touch his one time -_sempai_- anywhere too fragile, certain one wrong grasp and the older boy would shatter.

Kabuto blinked up uncertainly, eyes not entirely focused and Naruto wondered if he was blind yet. It wasn't an unlikely side effect. Never mind the repeated blows to the head, there was also the exposure to extreme temperatures and elements. The way he looked up at him, unguarded and openly made Naruto more certain of it, that if he wasn't blind than he certainly wasn't seeing things right either. He tried to smile, it came off as a bit a sneer but the sentiment was there. "It's been a long while, hasn't it?"

Kabuto unwittingly returned the expression. He gulped loudly, catching equal parts air and blood. "Naruto-kun?" his voiced sounded painfully dry and small, fragile and falling apart.

"Yes?" he replied, determined to keep any emotions from his voice.

"I'm sorry--" Kabuto said sincerely, while his eyes closed heavily. When they opened again they appeared greyer, duller and sealed off in an unnatural way.

Naruto stared for a very long three seconds, sensing something he didn't have words for. He might have hated the man or at one point looked up to him. He learned early on you didn't look away from a man at the end of his life. It made no difference, a dying Shinobi was neither enemy nor friend; he was mortal man.

"--and, good luck." Kabuto breathed, and with his voice raised a shudder that shook his battered frame. The grey pallor of his eyes and skin, spread beneath skin level and his flesh began to change into ash, thick and cracked. The weight of his deadened limbs collapsed inward, revealing a husk, dried and fragile, and the shape of joints and muscles. His corpse looked like a fine sculpture and nothing resembling actual life.

The sudden shift made Naruto gasp in surprise. Tears of fury welled up in his eyes, becoming a catalyst to guilt. He was supposed to be a savior. He was supposed defeat evil things and protect good. But there was no way of doing that when friend could be an enemy with the switch of a headband. Ideals like 'safety' and 'home' seemed more dream-like with every passing day, and being Shinobi felt less like a way of life and more like a crime.

There was nothing left of Kabuto to bury. That felt wrong as well, to have lived a full life and then to vanish so completely. Not even a gravestone to mark the passing. Naruto thought by the scent of Kabuto's death, irreversible and final, he would never forget this final resting place of his former friend. He had been wrong to think there was no impression of his passing. Kabuto's death surrounded him, the corrupting stink of it was more than skin deep and it carried with him as he traveled. People parted when they saw him near. He assumed it was because the village he was entering was rural, small, unknowing and they respected the Ninja when they saw one. He hadn't wanted to admit that he looked like murderer, an untamed beast, little more than a man. A part of him knew the truth though; the part that entered the nearest bar, dropped heavily into a partition and got a bottle of Saké without having ordered. He served himself a cup because the waitress wouldn't, not that he would ask her to, not that he wanted to drink it. They hadn't questioned his age; they'd assumed rightly that he needed a round. He needed more than that, but this town was far too small to provide and far too close to Konoha to abet him. Maybe they could indulge him a bath. Maybe that was too much to ask.

After-Combat binge drinking was never a good idea, but Naruto had never been known for making the wisest choices. He lifted the cup and drank nearly all it's contents in one take.

When he was in top form it could take twenty rounds before he even got buzzed. Nine-Tails fox demon would be all twitchy and burning bright in that unsavory way that made his skin crawl. There was enough at the bottom to give off a strong smell of alcohol, purifying and flammable. His throat constricted uncomfortably as he swallowed his mouthful and he wondered idly exactly how much of Kabuto's ashes had he ingested while he watched the wind make grey and damning swirls into the air. He breathed in deeply, inhaling the fumes and willing the scent and feel of recent death to abate. It wouldn't. It was more than skin-deep now; it was in his brain, replaying all of it, every Jutsu, every uncalculated clumsy technique, every counter and defense, every winning blow, every dying breath. It had started at this bar.

Naruto smirked in reflection and brought the cup to his lips, just to smell, not to taste. On an empty stomach laced with demon Chakra, alcohol was a bitch to maintain. It had only taken one serving to make his throat burn and his head swim. When he felt this volatile nothing would serve to calm him. Nothing at all. No sort of hunt, no sort of speech, no amount of alcohol. And he hated the smell; he downright hated the smell because it was so potent. It hit him before the taste of it ever did. That and the way cheap dive denizens reeked of the stuff. Good people turned debauchees for the sake of reprieve. The good people of Konoha were like that, but not. He could see the same pathetic hopeful sight in a shrine, at a memorial plaque or staring off at some mountain-side monument--the same expression he could find any day of the week chugging serving after serving of Saké. It didn't have anything to do with sin or guilt, or apathy and grace. It had to do with life. Nobody searched out these sorts of sanctuary for a real answer; they just were looking for a temporary solace. At least for one more minute, or one more round, which ever came first.

An hour earlier, maybe more, he had come into the bar for directions to the nearest ramen stand. Jiraiya always said these places were good for information gathering and as usual he was more right than Naruto cared to admit.

He wasn't one to live in regret. He wasn't going to think about what could have happened if he kept on till the Konoha gates and hadn't listened to Jiraiya's advice about staying at an inn so they could have a fresh start in the morning. He wouldn't drive himself crazy wondering if he had tried finding the hotel first instead of the ramen stand would he have noticed the familiar shadows hovering in the back of the bar. It wasn't worth questioning who matched gazes first, Sasuke or he; the outcome would have been the same. The slow and graceful move to stand, the long developed connection forged by a palpable resentment, the challenging sneer before a formless blur took shape between them. Kabuto whispered into Sasuke's ear, while they watched Naruto nearing. Sasuke's displeasure was evident, particularly around his eyes, they way they narrowed, hardened and brightened to nearly gold in mute rage, and in the way his mouth pressed thinned into a line as he gave Kabuto a glare that would have made a lesser man crumble. It made no difference whether he lingered on the details when the outcome was unchangeable. The trigger in him had been switched. Over the horizon of service people and customers he captured the image, the arrogant and dismissive lift in his chin. Sasuke had disappeared behind a shadow of a passing man in the time it took to blink an eye. It was impossible to follow the motion and his aggravation with the crowd was liable to cost him ground. But Kabuto remained, and he smiled in a familiar kindly manner that made Naruto remember just what sort of cruelty the liar was capable of.

It wasn't till he was dead that Naruto considered Kabuto was only twenty. Ironically the legal drinking age. They weren't to far apart in years, raised in the same country, taught the same ideals. Yet Kabuto hadn't hesitated to betray his home and Naruto hadn't hesitated to strike him down. He didn't feel remorse, he felt resentment. Something about the experience robbed him of his bitterness toward Kabuto. Little realizations littered his mind and made the demon in him restless and surly. He hadn't meant to kill him, but he hadn't shown restraint either. He reasoned that he should be mad at Kabuto for getting between him and Sasuke, but then would he have felt better if it had been Sasuke dead instead of Kabuto? When did trying to rescue a friend feel so much like murder? Had Sasuke felt like that three years ago at 'Valley of the End'? Was that why he hadn't killed Naruto as he lay helpless and half-dead? Naruto himself had made a promise once, over the grave of a Shinobi-child he respected as both a friend and an enemy. He swore he would never function as a tool but live life honorably and by his own ideals. With that in mind, for three years he persevered on the principle that Sasuke was wrong and he was right. Sasuke needed to be corrected, forcibly.

If he had been wrong and conditioned himself to deal death so mercilessly, unfeelingly toward friend or foe, than where had his ideal driven him? Maybe it was idealistic but it consoled him when he felt torn within, when only a thread of decency divided the space between demon and boy.

Suddenly every intake of air tasted bitter and it had nothing to do with the alcohol.

Naruto hadn't seen Jiraiya arrive so much as he simply knew he was there. Countless times Perverted-Hermit showed up, unannounced, unwelcome and unnervingly well-timed to have missed the battle but be just in time for the clean up.

"There's no mess this time, Ero-Sennin!" Naruto growled in the direction of the door.

He wasn't one for making cynical statements. It went against his grain. He had meant the kill, the body. There was nothing left to claim even. Granted he looked a mess but Naruto never gave much expectation to repairing his screwed up self. He hadn't taken note of the lateness in the day or the way the service people scattered at the sound of his voice. He knew the old man heard but chose to ignore him, probably went straight away to pay off the bartender and keep them from calling the authorities. Naruto smirked at his dim reflection in his dirty drinking glass. In the murky liquid that shimmered up at him he could still make out the particulars of his features, painted in ash and dried blood. He wouldn't have to listen to the old man bitch about removing his forehead protector when making an ass of himself, 'lest he take down the good name of Konoha with him'. He gripped the glass and tossed back the last swig of his liquor. He hated the taste, the intense sense of warmth it generated under his numbed over skin. But he hated it less than acknowledging he'd lost his precious -_hitae-ate_- while killing Kabuto.

"--like I knew you would, stupid brat," Jiraiya finished a practiced tirade.

Naruto blinked slowly and glanced sideways at his mentor. It didn't mattered that he hadn't responded to the man since that one outburst when he'd first entered. They were all practiced dialogues. They were supposed to be lessons but he sometimes noticed it was getting increasingly difficult to tell which the stupid and willful student was and which was the jaded, world-weary teacher.

Jiraiya polished off another six servings while Naruto slowly turned his empty glass around and around in grubby hands.

It was well after dawn before they were on their feet again. The staff had long gone; Naruto only noticed that the place stank less of good people and their good people smells. Jiraiya nursed the remaining bottle like its contents had been made of honey and nectarines instead of fermented potato skins. He drank for every drink that Naruto wanted to drown in but couldn't bring himself to lift. He drank for every shadow that looked like the outline of someone familiar. He drank for the way Naruto's eyes saw through things, people and places like they weren't even there, like they were made of something too intense to focus on to long. And Jiraiya drank for absent friends because it was Tsunade's favorite brand of Saké and while neither of them had said it out loud, they both knew the time was coming for his their travels to end.

"--and that's it. No clues to follow?" asked Jiraiya, unsuccessfully trying to suppress a yawn as they walked out of the bar.

"What do you want? A song and dance?" replied Naruto with no venom in his voice. A profound tiredness had seeped into him as he had recounted the evening, skirting over details he knew Jiraiya could see plainly on his person. "I had to watch a friend die tonight. Don't you think if I had any clues as to where the bastard was hiding, I'd be out there tracking his ass down instead of hanging a round with you?"

Jiraiya spared him a particularly severe look. At times like that, when their glares were so identical it was obvious that Naruto had only come so far. He may have grown to nearly eye level with the white-haired Sannin, but they would never meet eye to eye.

"It's part of the job, kid," he said mirthlessly.

Naruto bared his teeth threateningly, struggling to keep his temper under control. "Don't give me that! Shinobi is a way of life, not just a job. It doesn't have to be like '-_this_-'!"

"Damn it," said Jiraiya, smirking at the first sign of life his idiot pupil showed all night. "I had hoped my elite lessons and superior training had beaten that foolish idealism out of you."

"Well, it hasn't!" Naruto snarled reflexively.

"Well, that's good, too," said Jiraiya, nodding to himself. They might never see eye to eye, but that had been anticipated.

"You're not making any sense, old man," sighed Naruto, raking his hands through his hair in frustration.

"I wasn't trying to," said Jiraiya.

"What the hell kind of teacher are you anyway? How am I supposed to learn anything if--"

"You're not," interrupted Jiraiya.

"Eh?"

"You're done," he explained. Naruto continued to stare at him dumbfounded.

"Right now, there is nothing else I have to teach you that you can't figure out on your own, understand?" said Jiraiya with a deliberate slow enunciation one would use while talking to a very retarded stump of wood.

Jiraiya's smirk lengthened when Naruto's expression clouded with confusion, brightened with excitement then darkened immediately with uncertainty.

"C-careful, Ero-Sennin," stammered Naruto, "you're coming dangerously close to sounding optimistic about me."

"Well, I am a great teacher. Plus, there's something much more important I've got to do. In the meantime you should head back to Konoha."

"By myself?" asked Naruto, looking simultaneously stricken and upset.

"Well," intoned Jiraiya, while stretching his back and cracking his neck simultaneously. "Someone's got to tell her."

Naruto glanced over the old man. He seemed to have gotten older in the hours they'd sat at the bar. The skin on his face a bit paler, the mousy white mass of hair seemed drier and heavier at the same time. Jiraiya had always been old. He was one of the Legendary Sannin and Naruto sometimes thought he may never have been young at all. But when he thought of Tsunade or Orochimaru, people who were once as close as kin, he always seemed to wither in reflection. Jiraiya may well have been talking about them all night long; he did that sometimes when he was certain no one was listening. And for the most part Naruto's company, in the state he had been in, was just as good as being alone.

Naruto nodded numbly and looked toward the fork in the road. One led to Konoha, the other away. Someone had to go in a report their findings. The act would mean loyalty to Konoha above all else, to the city and the people therein, to the stone faces carved onto an uncaring rock face and to the hundreds of names carved into a stone slab. He glanced at Jiraiya's back as he turned toward the road leading away. He thought to himself, maybe the old man was right. After all, turning his back on Konoha wasn't a lesson he needed to learn. At least not with help.

"This is a crappy way of going about it," sighed Naruto, as he crossed his arms to keep them from trembling.

Three years with Jiraiya, avoiding home because it had been the right thing to do at the time. He wondered, if it had been so right than how could it unnerve him so much to go back?

The old man smacked him once on the back as a jovial show of support. It nearly toppled him.

"Don't look so down," chided Jiraiya as he started away. "I know you'll miss me, but I'll look you up when I'm around."

"I'll be easy to find!" Naruto shouted after him, "Just look under 'Greatest Hokage Ever'!" He turned and stomped away.

Outrageous claims like that came so easily to him and the path he followed back was second nature. While his mind my have been uncertain, his mouth seemed to have gotten ahead of him.

Just as suddenly as he had chosen a path, when he entered the village he found he suddenly became misdirected. He knew Konohagakure as well as he knew the Nine-Tails Fox; pretty damn intimately. He knew where he had gotten turned about, the turn off of the market street, it led to Hokage Tower via Sakura's house. He knew he could have stayed on the main road and gone to the tower directly. He knew it was the right thing to do, to report in even if it was likely that border guard had sent the Lady-Hokage word of his arrival.

Even so, he stood in muted observance outside the Haruno household, lost and mystified. Every time he willed his feet to move, his mind lost against the memories. He had a fairly good sense of direction. Getting turned about was unlikely, but then so was the feeling of crossing the small wood bridge leading in from the main gate and expecting to see Cell Seven laying in wait for their Jounin master. Traveling and tripping so willfully after one another. A three-man cell, a lazy Jounin-Sensei and a world of opportunity just around the corner.

The sound of the front door slamming shut snapped him to the present. He stared blankly up into light eyes and fair hair that memory hadn't done justice. She strolled down the steps, carelessly running her fingers through shower-moist collar length hair, clutching a garment bag in the other hand. She paused as she made to turn and looked directly at him, very nearly through him, eyes widening with realization.

-_She looks taller_-, his mind supplied before it gave voice.

"Ino?"

"Naruto!" she replied, her voice a perfect mix between shock and amusement.

She smiled in a way that reminded him of his own. Broader than strictly necessary, kinder than he felt he deserved.

"How've you been?" he heard himself ask.

Her pale eyes washed over him, a searching sort of gaze that he couldn't discern the purpose of. He noticed she wore a casual layer of training mesh and no bandages or guards, only the forehead protector tied tight around her slim waist convey she was Shinobi. He reasoned it was her day off and felt slightly guilty for interfering.

"-_We've_- been fine, Naruto. Good really," replied Ino, while placing her free hand on her hip. Her stance relaxed some but took on a vaguely defensive note. Or maybe it was the way she emphasized the word 'we'. Naruto felt his mouth twitch reflexively in response. She hadn't seemed deterred by it, maybe just a little amused.

"You didn't mean to catch Sakura here, did you?" asked Ino, in a knowing sort of tone.

Naruto shook his head slowly and turned his gaze to the ground.

"Well, where were you headed?"

"Hokage tower," he answered. His mouth, as usual, had a mind of it's own.

"Right. Of course," she nodded briskly and motioned for him to walk alongside her. "It's a good thing too, because you look a wreck."

"Thanks," he scoffed, dragging his feet.

"Lucky, you," she continued smilingly, "showing up in time for our celebration."

Naruto folded his arms once more; it seemed the only appropriate way to obscuring his tattered clothes and filthy appearance from being too obvious. Konoha smelled crisp and fresh, Ino's scented shampoo was a deep contrast to his own depravity. While there was nothing to be done for it he still felt slightly embarrassed.

"Everyone will be surprised to see you I expect," she smirked at him over her shoulder. He felt momentarily like she was keeping something from him, or rather speaking about something of particular interest. Something he should have been able to pick up on but was too thickheaded to already know. He glanced down at the garment bag that swayed back and forth in her right hand. He noted the familiar texture and patches and frowned in thought, trying to place where he'd last seen their like.

"So, maybe you should clean up, okay?" laughed Ino, stopping a short distance away at a crossing where students recently let out of school were chasing each other with Origami-Shuriken. Naruto regarded the children distractedly. They seemed innocent enough, if not a little rambunctious. It hadn't been long ago when he had been just as young, if not more so. It felt like a hell of a lot more than just three years. Ino watched them veer off down the street and turn the corner, her expression a little wistful. The free hand wrapped around her waist, sliding alongside her -_hitae-ate_- revealed her thoughts weren't too far off from his own. She may have smelled cleaner and stood straighter but she too had grown up to quickly because of the way of life they had chosen. There wasn't regret, just sympathy for the next generation of ninjas all the trials sure to come with it. They too would live up to their choices just as they would suffer from their mistakes.

"Hello?" asked Ino, waving a hand in front of his eyes. He blinked and she came back into focus. He didn't know whether it was the expanse of land looking so sublime and peaceful behind her or the prettiness that held her warrior's features in an expression of concern, but it all felt very dream-like suddenly.

"I need to head home," she pointed in the direction of a flower shop in the opposite direction. Naruto's gaze followed her gesture, while he recognized the street corner and the name of the place, he suddenly felt like stranger. He could see that there was a sunny white and yellow placemat on the doorstep that read 'welcome', it had a wreath of pansies embroidered into it. He had no doubt that Ino was going to wipe her feet on it even though her sandals only had the vaguest film of dust settling at the tip.

"Big-forehead girl is waiting over at my place. I just popped over to grab a fixed outfit," she explained. "I'd welcome you to come by later but...you really might want to take a shower... or seven." She smiled awkwardly; like Naruto's oafish behavior was familiar and therefore acceptable. He wondered if the blood really bothered all that much or was it just obligatory for a girl to point out a boy's shortcomings. After all, Sakura-chan had always been eager to pipe up about his failings--

"Nah," replied Naruto forcefully, suddenly finding his voice. Uncomfortably he started back the way he had come. Ino blinked at him in surprised and watched his back as he made to leave.

"I'll tell her you-y-you're going the wrong way," she called out after him.

Naruto hadn't heard a word she said. Sure he recognized the shape and sound of a girl he used to know, but suddenly everything seemed too different and strange. The more he thought about Sakura-chan the quicker his pace picked up.

The last time he had seen her she had her back to the sun and glowed in its rays(1). She smiled at him and promised a promise of a lifetime. She had only been thirteen and had had her heart torn apart and pieced together more times than any one should, especially a child. It was a thundering realization to know she was as close as a few feet, unaware of the changing world, celebrating life and friends. Over the years he had dreamed up endless scenarios of what his return to Konoha. Covered in filth and reeking of death had not been among them. His mind flurried over what it might have been like, if he opened the door and he discovered her discontented too, just like him. Or worse yet, summer fresh of springtime clean like Ino had been. If he showed up in his current state, it would bring everything to a crashing end. That seemed more treacherous and likely. He couldn't bring himself to rob her of her normalcy. While it was to much to expect things to remain the same he wasn't ready to let go of the past. He had unfinished business, something deep inside of him had been unsettled and he needed to piece it together. For once he couldn't blame it on the demon-fox.

A delicate and strong grip wrapped around his shoulder and spun him back around. Ino glared at him, her pink mouth parted and breathless and her face slightly flush at the obvious exertion it took for her to catch up to him.

"Baka-Naruto, didn't you hear me," she demanded, looking unduly annoyed "I said 'you are going the wrong way'."

"Ino, listen. I need a favor," he said, and his voice carried a certainty he hadn't felt since he had first seen Sasuke in the bar the night before.

She was attentive and her expression vaguely concerned while she lent him the ink and paper to write a note. She hadn't meant to read it but he used her forearm to steady himself while he scratched out the words.

-_"Dear Sakura-Chan, I'm sorry."_-

He wrote in a sloppy scrawl and folded it unevenly a number of times. In some way they both knew it needn't be signed, Sakura would certainly know.

"Give this to her," he instructed, meaningfully.

Ino nodded and while taking the paper from his hand she held on longer than necessary. He stared down at the connection. His fingers trembled in her grip, his hands were soiled and hers pristine, yet she didn't slacken her hold. She looked just as sympathetic as she had when she watch the academy students race passed her, and she smiled just kindly when she finally took the note from him and promised to deliver it.

That done, he felt nothing binding him to Konoha, and he jumped up to the rooftops and ran full speed toward the front gate. It was only due to his keen hearing that he was able to make out Ino's last words.

"Good Luck."

It sounded like a curse as well as a wish. He took it as both.

* * *

Footnotes:   
(1)Naruto and Sakura last see each other in his hospital room after his near death battle with Sasuke. For the most part this fic will be primarily manga!canon based kids, which means no random missions before the three-year time jump.


	2. Chapter Two: Approaching Hostiles

WARNINGS: Spoilers for everything before Naruto Episode 135 Chapter 238. Bastardizer of everything after.

AUTHOR NOTES: mer. Originally I removed this chapter from the fic, then I realized, dull as it is, it is nessecary. On the plus side, half the next chapter is already written and it earns the fic rating. On the minus side, I've fried my laptop and I'm leaving the states for most of Dec. No pc, means no fic. So, if I haven't posted by month's end, then I'll try and make it extra special for... like, christmas or something. People still celebrate that, right? fcked I know. As usual, there are illustrations for this chapter; (ohshushDOTcom/fandom/images/superfluous-fluff/2bsch02DOThtml)

DISCLAIMER: Kishimoto-sensei, Shonen Magazine and all sorts of people at VIZ own Naruto and the premises therein. This is a work of fan-created fiction intended solely for amusement. No infringements intended.

* * *

_"No matter how dangerous the risk, there will be missions you can't decline. . . This is the talent that we most value in a commander--" _

- Ibiki - Naruto Chapter 44, Volume 5 VIZ Translations

* * *

_"Who calls this child to walk on her own? _

_Who leads her down this treacherous road?" _

- Selena, God's Child

* * *

**Chapter Two: Approaching Hostiles**

Sakura sat alone in the conference room adjoining the Hokage's office, staring avidly into space. Fair and frail methodically trimmed hair, half circles under her eyes, breathing in calculatedly even measures through her faintly parted lips, and her back maintaining a straight posture like that of a rod, with her legs crossed firmly at the ankles. Her hands were folded securely in her lap, a crumbled bit of paper clenched between the fingers of the right one. These and other subtle signs marked an acutely troubled girl.

She assumed, and rightly, that people would be bustling through soon enough, as the office through the other side of the oak double-doors was buzzing with muddled voices in heavy deliberation. She valued the quiet time but was hardly enjoying it. The setting wasn't unbecoming, with high ceilings, plush carpeting, extended sofas and footrests, yet she sat in the narrow space provided by a marble topped coffee table, shared with an ashtray, a number of scrolls and a lamp. Her perch marked the only seat not facing the overhead portraits of Hokages. While she respected her village's history and the patriarchs therein, she never got used to being in their immediate audience. The carved faces in the mountainside were morosely impersonal but the portraits hung captured faded features, shadows and wrinkles of humor and hardship marking the eyes and mouths that seemingly watched everything. While it may have given some confidence and reassurance to stand in their audience, it also gave her the willies.

Despite her obvious unease due to the preceding Hokages company it wasn't unusual to find Sakura hauled up in the Hokage Tower. In fact it was commonplace, although certain areas were more comfortable; the clinic library for one, and the testing facility for another. Best yet, the third door along the service floor; a room she'd renovated into makeshift quarters for late night undertakings; a hideaway where she'd likely remain indefinitely if it weren't for obligations of food, family and friends. Early on she committed herself to the opinion that while she might never be an exceptional beauty she would always be an outstanding medical-Nîn.

"Sakura!" Tsunade said, sweeping into the room with an air of authority, throwing the double-doors wide apart. Sakura was quick to her feet and smiled tight-lipped as she made a show of bowing slightly. Tsunade gave the girl a vigorous gesture, simultaneously waving her to come nearer and halt the formality. "No one informed me when you arrived," she said as she came to sit on the couch across from the girl, with an exaggerated sigh waiting to be expelled. Sakura smiled at the forwardness and retook her seat on the table-end. While it was still early in the morning her master was showing all the signs of having been exhausted past her patience.

"I was already in administration when your messenger found me," Sakura explained softly, letting the image play in mind of the Hokages carrier bird soaring indoors to lift the mood.

Tsunade smiled sufficiently and stretched her legs out beneath her, finding the soft spot the stiff high-backed couch concealed.

"You could have come in," Tsunade said, audibly amused. Sakura glanced over the couch to the adjoining office and the commotion therein. It wasn't the Chuunin assistants alone that made her reluctant; it was the council members, old and looming, providing such dour company it made her exhausted just looking at them.

Sakura shook her head and gave a mild smile, "It looked important... yes, I know all Hokage business is important to someone or else it wouldn't be brought to the Hokage at all. It just seemed a bit more... stiff."

Tsunade snorted in amusement, "Nothing exceptional. I'd have liked it if you could have joined us, give me some sort opinion that wasn't spun with bureaucracy. I expect this to last the rest of the day at most." She slouched further into the couch, sensing counsel member Homura-san's(1) prying eyes over the distance. Tsunade hardly ever was as tired as she put on but than nothing about the Sannin was ever as it seemed. Most times she smiled brightly, playfully as a schoolgirl and on the turn of a whim had a temper like snapdragon stuck to a pin board.

"So, all your paperwork has been squared away?" she asked.

"Of course!" Sakura grimaced, an awkward station between a flinch and a grin. She crushed the unnoticed bit of paper into her fist and came away from the end table. She moved across the room leisurely, hands clasped behind her, but without a direction in mind.

Tsunade observed her rather narrowly, her knowing honey dark eyes sparkling with mischief. "I imagine you aren't surprised to learn that our favorite loudmouth brat has returned from a successful stint?"

Sakura examined the melting calk along a window frame all too intently. She tapped on the glass with her fingernail, importunately. "No. Er, it was successful then?" She went on tapping on the glass, as if trying to find a fault in the structure. Her stance had eased but the obscured right hand mutilated what remained of Naruto's haphazard letter of apology. She knew it wasn't her place to ask the 'how' and 'why' in relation to their 'favorite loudmouth brat'. If she had needed to know mission details then she would know them. His unannounced disappearance three year earlier served as a marker from which she measured herself; it reminded that time consisted of a thing always outside of her control, and regardless of how strongly she cared for people, they were always going to fall outside of her protection because of it. Only slightly less obvious, the ventures of their 'favorite loudmouth brat' redefined her idea of 'hope'.

"Of course," Tsunade said with confidence, while trying not to be amused. Sakura closed her eyes and sighed. "You seem surprised," Tsunade continued as she folded her hands onto her lap benignly.

"Relieved," Sakura answered, with her eyes still closed. When she opened them again, her tone was more familiar, her smile less forced and she complied with her master's entreaties to sit beside her. She landed on the armrest and pitched the bit of paper into the garbage bin beneath the coffee table. "It just seems very sudden, don't you think?" she asked indirectly, unable to keep her eyes from darting up to the portraits once more.

They remained silent for a beat, reality and the world stilled for a margin and made the breath worth taking and the immediacy of real life that much more relevant.

"I'd like to put you back into field work," Tsunade finished.

"Oh," Sakura replied softly, certain that this ones one of those instances where a reply was necessary even if it was unconvincing. She stared blankly at the portraits for another ten seconds or so, then closed her eyes again.

"What? No complaints? No tantrums?"

Sakura chuckled weakly and shook her head.

"I'm not teaming you up with anyone new if that's what you're worried about."

"I wasn't going to say--" Sakura said, once again not wanting to reply but feeling the need.

"I already have an assignment in mind," Tsunade said, sitting notably forward. The air of authority returned to her voice. "While it isn't really a high rank mission it isn't to be taken lightly either. It's why I sent for you, you know. It demands a certain level of… discretion, if I may. It isn't nearly as diplomatic as I'm making it sound, but it is terribly vital. I trust you to handle it."

"Has it anything to do with why Homura-san glaring daggers at the back of my head?"

"Don't mind that," Tsunade said, an ounce of mischief reappearing in her tone. "I'll let them stew for a bit. I told them I came in here for a document."

"You were going to make a run for it, weren't you?"

Tsunade, still looking at the portraits, grinned and shook her head. "You don't know that," she paused, her long blonde hair making wiry sweeping sounds as it fell forward onto her lapel. She swept them back in an off-handed and juvenile gesture marking that her dark humor hadn't run dormant yet. "So, I'll leave it to you then."

"Of course, Shishou(2)," Sakura said, standing once more, a bit lighter, happy to look away from looming eyes.

"Shizune is at the testing facility. She can fill you in on everything you'll need. While you're at it you can have her sign-off on your physical and head out immediately."

"Immediately," Sakura repeated. She didn't entirely regret having to bail on Ino's plans for that evening, which still seemed entirely too sudden and well timed to have been a coincidence.

Tsunade hovered as she stood and made a pretty display of dragging her heels as she returned to the office.

"Shizune-san has my assignment? And she's waiting for me in the testing facility?" Sakura asked uncertainly. She shuddered, sensing conspirators in the wing.

"Just hurry along, I've got important people to annoy," Tsunade said evasively and exited with as much grace as she had entered.

* * *

"She didn't even say 'congratulations'," Sakura marveled, while Shizune fired the inoculation into her forearm. 

"Sorry," Shizune said quickly, wiping the puncture wound and readying a bandage. Sakura waved her off, her mild annoyance growing into resentment. She tugged hurriedly on her long gloves, pulling them up to her bicep, yanking them for good measure.

"I'm sure she meant to," Shizune soothed, discarding the syringe and gestured for Sakura to stand once more so that she could get her stats measured.

Sakura hopped down from the medical table and sauntered over to the scale. "It wasn't like she hadn't noticed, I mean she asked me about my paperwork. 53kilos" Shizune jotted down the number on her pad, while Sakura retook her seat and strapped her shin guards back on.

"Sakura-san, have some consideration. Today, Tsunade-Sama was woken up at first light to deal with these troublesome matters, not to mention the late-night she pulled," Shizune entreated, while fitting her bicep with a cholesterol monitor. Sakura looked on infuriated that it would take a two-minutes of sitting still for the test result to show, longer if she didn't keep calm. She tried not to glare at Shizune while she worked, tried and failed. "It's not like anything today is going as she intended, but she's making the best of it. Don't tell me you've never had one of those days?"

"Those days?"

"You know, where everything seems out of your control and you try, in futility, to make things better."

"Sounds familiar," Sakura frowned and dropped her head slightly. She let her eyes measure the floor tiles and the off colorations of the panel work. She'd committed them all to memory years before, and currently the normalcy they provided was priceless.

Certainly she knew what it was like to have one of 'those days'. She was living one of 'those days', from waking up to have Ino nagging at her, her cherished old uniform beyond repair from yesterdays controversy, and the hastily delivered note that now replayed in her mind's eye. Shizune made a non-committal sound and scratched off her calculations on a medical chart. Whenever she thought about the letter, what it said, what it could mean--Sakura gave a shudder.

"Cold?" Shizune asked, concerned and monitoring.

"I call those weekdays," Sakura said, and shook her head briskly and smiled convincingly while she realigned the length of her gloves, obscuring the need to rub her arms. "Briefly interceded by periods of complete moral devastation. See, we call those weekends."

"Come on, come on," Shizune said, cheerfully placing a thermometer in Sakura's mouth, cutting off any chance at a comeback. "Don't be bitter. Tsunade-sama thinks the world of you. We all do. It isn't all that bad, is it?"

Sakura shrugged skeptically and struggled not to bite through the mechanism of metal and plastic, while waiting out the remaining 57 seconds. Shizune drummed her fingers along the edges of the clipboard, thick with Sakura's medical information along with a dossier consisting of mission details. Her features were schooled in a passive-aggressive calm; her lips had very little more color in them than the rest of her face. They were also, very faintly, chapped, likely due to the thoughtful gnawing that was her habit. Sakura's pale eyes narrowed in on the features while trying not to concentrate too intently on the words.

"I know it's hardly glamorous work, acting on behalf of the Godaime. It's hardly one of the perks of being her apprentice, tirelessly smoothing over pretentious delegates and feudal lords, ensuring that everyone gets heard and feels valued and blah blah blah. But it's the sort of work so few of us are entrusted to do, and we are because we have good instincts, because we care about others before ourselves, because we can multi-task like freaks. But I've heard that last bit is something of a given to those of the female persuasion." Sakura broke in with a grunt, whether in agreement or dispute or simply readjusting the thermometer, to which Shizune smirked. "Well, anyway, I'm sure a Kunoichi(3) as clever as you knows that these aren't the only reasons behind your status. Your rank isn't a coincidence and your apprenticeship wasn't entertained because of the people you knew. You are where you are right now because at a time when young girls actively searched for meaning and order in the universe, you dedicated yourself whole-heartedly to the life-saving field of medicine.

"The world has need of people like us. We see the details and care enough to fix them. We fight when it counts and mend when it matters. More importantly we're smart enough to know the difference. Knowing all that--more importantly keeping in mind Tsunade-Sama authorizes the status of every Nîn in this village--you don't really need for her to congratulate you?"

The mechanical thermometer gave a well-timed chime, the digital face blinked and Sakura withdrew it, shaking it dry for good measure.

"37.0°C. Is that my mission?" Sakura asked, and discarded the disposable tip before returning the thermometer to its case. Shizune pale smile was un-phased by Sakura's lack of response, instead she seemed reassured by it.

"Not so fast," Shizune tutted, "first I need another medic to sign off and then--"

Sakura looked up and smiled, tipped the weighty clipboard over by clip and flipped it to face her while snatching up a pencil from behind Shizune's ear. She gave it a brief once over, nodded and signed primly under Shizune's signature. She handed off the chart to her sempai and glanced questioningly at the printouts beneath.

"What is all this?" Sakura asked, her tone all-business as she handed it back.

Shizune separated the medical paperwork from the mission briefs, while creating a third pile between the two, a confusing print-out listing an on-going array of chemical compounds.

"It's to make your life a little easier," Shizune explained. "We've figured out the most effective way to help you track your target. Mind you, it wasn't easy. There were all sorts of possible contaminants to the sample that we were able to locate. And given the unpredictable nature of your mission and how much time has passed, this technique will not last very long and you won't be able to repeat it."

Shizune firmly pressed a seemingly wax seal into the lower right-hand corner of the chart. An unfurled scroll on the countertop just beside filled up with scripted kanji and encoded stats, secreted away for the Sakura's eyes-only, while the printed-page faded into white. "Sakura-san, you'll only have the one opportunity--"

"So, what am I waiting around here for?" Sakura interrupted abruptly, from across the room. If the target bothered her, she showed no outward sign and appeared fully prepared to carry out the assignment as directed.

Shizune's concern got the better of her. "So," she started hesitantly, catching the younger medic's attention before she could slip out of the room. "I guess, I should wish you good luck?"

Sakura paused and smiled, her expression a bit too rigid to be natural, her stance a bit too taut to be unperturbed. She slipped on a shabby cloak she had earlier left discarded on a seat by the office door. It draped over her shoulders in a careless manner and she looked not entirely well put together because of it. The new uniform was made of a more durable material and the cloak seemed withered and battered with age and misuse. Shizune could guess the many reasons why Sakura had gone out of her way to retrieve such an antiquated piece of finery, fashioned with patchwork and battle-scars. The realization made her worry a bit less and made her smile come easier. She tossed Sakura's the tracking scroll, which she caught without looking and secreted it away into one of many hidden pockets on her person.

"There's no such thing as luck. Success relies on having a competent strategy executed with precision."

Shizune allowed herself a weary laugh once she knew Sakura to be to far away to overhear. She noted a neat pile of soot remained where the mission statement previously had been, destroyed after viewing as was protocol. She hadn't even noticed Sakura assess it, just as she hadn't sensed the use of a fire-Jutsu. Sometimes she feared the Godaime expected too much of Sakura, because while two of them were certainly alike it didn't mean they were the same. But then there were times likes these where it seemed Sakura had inherited an abnormal strength from Tsunade-Sama that was not physical at all. She hated to admit it but she was impressed, although it wasn't the reply that surprised her; it was textbook after all.

* * *

She stood on the precipice of the road that led to the main gate and let weariness cloud her movement. In her mind however the lanes of thought varied in width and girth, reminding her in distance and terrain where her uncertainty lay. She knew her assignment, wasn't marked as classified, just pressing. She could return to Ino's house to save face, which was likely to be mid-party central. While she felt she owed her friend some sort of explanation she didn't want the confrontation. She'd acquired her favorite, worn-out cloak from her crawl space in the clinic, and she had no reason to go home but no conviction to move forward. 

Given a life or death situation she knew her judgment to have been tested and stalwart. But working alone, without her team, on something as simple as reconnaissance made her feel a little more lost and a little less grown-up. While she certainly didn't want to be caught up in her past, she feared the future her actions might dictate. She wanted time to plan accordingly but instead felt very numb in mind, bleak, alone and confused. Like a day never passed, like she never learned her lessons, like promises meant nothing...

"Sakura-kun."

She started at the call of her name. The voice was familiar and reminded her in its tone that it was 'not-to-be-ignored'. She turned to find Iruka; the flicker a smile altered her entire appearance.

"Iruka-Sensei!" she greeted.

Iruka grinned, eyes nearly closed, all teeth, no inhibitions, awkward at the title still used.

Suddenly Sakura could recall nothing from the academy days that he passed on to her that she couldn't have learned from a scroll or field-experience. The pause between salutations expressed as much. Still, he motioned for her to join him on the bench outside the teahouse. Since he didn't really qualify as a friend or a teacher she didn't feel obligated to accept, which made her want to.

Iruka drank his tea with a gratuitous sort of appreciation. Sakura smiled at that and stared forward along the vacant road. He wasn't implying that there was a conversation of some terrible significance not going on. They would get to that. She would sit and think and he would drink and simmer. Debates like these could create world peace, she silently mused while closing her eyes.

Afterward Iruka observed her with a kind smile that made it obvious he was in teacher-mode, and while she enjoyed his company she was uncertain as to whether she wanted his counsel. She squinted at him through sunlight, lower than it had been moments earlier; it silhouetted him in brown-gold and brought age to his features she hadn't noticed before.

"Good tea?" she asked, only partly taking his interest in.

"Would you like some?" he replied, by way of not answering.

She shook her head and turned her smile toward the ground. If she found him too charming she would be suckered into a lecture she was hardly in the mood for.

"I've got a mission already," she reminded herself, aloud. "Just recon," she explained and continued to stare at ground, unhurried.

"I see." Iruka's cup was empty but still in hand. He revolved it slowly, like it was a cherished plaything, an item he wasn't ready to part with yet. He looked very contented. "I won't keep you." With absolute frankness he stated, "It's just that it's been a while, hasn't it?"

"Three months," she agreed with a nod.

It felt much longer since she'd seen him in passing in the market, tangled limbs weighed with groceries waving at him through a moderate crowd. He had nodded in greeting as she hurried along. Normalcy. It felt like another lifetime.

"Three months," he repeated with a sigh and placed the cup beside him with a delicate thud that trembled along the bench and made her station feel very temporary. It couldn't have been more ominous were it a judge's gavel. She sat further upright, uncrossed her legs and preparing to leave, but attentive.

"The new uniform," Iruka said directly, "it looks good."

"Thank you," Sakura said quickly, and put a hand to her forehead, wiping at imagined strands. The forehead protector kept her hair, cut short, in place too well for it to have come undone. She hadn't imagined Iruka's amusement at the gesture. She sat up a bit further and tried not to frown.

"I don't think it fits me very well," she reflected and re-crossed her legs in a display of the high hemlines. "Don't you think?" she asked, watching him. She tugged at the hem in absent gestures of example and looked back to Iruka for confirmation.

His gazed never left her face while the setting sun matured his features further. She might have altered her position on the bench, if she meant to go on looking at him, but that would have meant lingering. She struggled to keep her eyes from wandering over the recognizable material, fiberglass bonded with resin, layers of basket-weave nylon, weather worn patches and tattered edgings.

To her surprise, Sakura discovered herself captured soundly in the thrall of a student enamored. Not romantic in any way, but reminiscent of earlier days, where Iruka out-ranked her by seeming leagues and the borrowed wisdom he supplied was more fulfilling than a physical meal. She fidgeted in earnest, interlacing her gloved clothed fingers over her knee to command her swaying leg to remain still.

"You just need to break it in," he said, turning his gaze to look past her. After a brief reflection he gave his head vigorous nod, somehow pleased with himself.

Sakura snapped closed her gaping mouth. Had he advised her, '-_she would grow into it_-' she might have read it as condescending and regretted his company. She had grown more than enough, more so in the past hour than in the past three months. Had he advised her, '-_it looked good enough_-' she would have concluded that Iruka-Sensei was a fraud, because flak jacket or mesh-lined skirt, the uniform of a fighter was not a fashionable exploit. It was armor and gear, it was a thicker layer of skin lined with Kevlar, and it was carrying intent like a badge and a club.

She shook her head clear of her anxiety she stood to leave. "I'll do that, Sensei."

"You don't have to call me that, you know," he added, and a sheepish grin, practiced and thin, colored his face.

"I know, -_Sensei_-," she laughed gently as she imagined he practiced that particular expression in a mirror. He would have to since no one should have been able to articulate so much innocent sincerity while wearing the patches of a Jounin. She grinned down at him and suddenly understood why she remembered the man so fondly.

She waved at him quickly as she turned to leave. She'd gotten five feet off the main road before turning back, only to discover the Jounin was already gone. It was the sort of thing to make a civilian doubt whether it had occurred at all, but the discarded teacup and her renewed sense of motivation claimed otherwise.

* * *

Her heart nearly came to a standstill when the gate finally appeared before her in the distance. The fan and family crest warning all-points pass reserved for Uchiha. She pulled her cloak tighter, trying in vain to stave off a bone-seeping chill. She centered herself, closed her eyes, squared her stance and drew her hood up. The ends of her lips tugged faintly upward in recognition of the act. This was exactly where she stood less than twenty-four hours ago. 

She thought about the real reason she shivered, not with fear but with excitement. Three years. She finally allowed herself to think on the many times she had gone out of her way just to stand and stare at this very gate. Not just this gate, but the Ramen stand two-blocks further east than she ever had need to visit, the hospital roof where the laundry was hung out to dry, the three pillars by the practice-field, and the unavoidable turn near the academy that everyone needed to travel to leave Konoha.

Sakura opened her eyes slowly, staring resolutely up at the sun. She felt with certainty that the time for standing still had come to an abrupt end. While recon was hardly her strong suit, considering her close-personal relationship with the 'target', being Tsunade's choice liaison was hardly surprising. Her features hardened, while, with steady hands, she dredged up Shizune's tracking scroll and broke the seal. She lifted the white mask with the crude red markings on over her face and leapt to the top of the wall, unraveling the scroll through the air behind her.

In the endless seconds as she activated the Jutsu a strategy formed in her mind. The complicated artful script was set to locate the 'target' with pinpoint accuracy to its present location. A spiraling black smoke poured forth, and carried in the breeze like oil dispersing through water, a slender and dissolving path focused into an unstable line, beginning to fade nearly as soon as it was formed, and she needed to race after its trail faster than the naked eye could see.

As she chased after her guide she caught half-glimpses of the Hokage mountainside, playing peek-a-boo with the landscape. Shops, restaurants and citizens, blurred homes, overseen by all-seeing eyes. Whether they were physical, Chakra laden or carved of stone, they watched over all things, including herself. Passersby would catch the marking's, sight her vestments and would smile a bit more earnestly, confident in her presence and abilities, entrusting her to carry on. When she flittered, imperviously, through the main gate, chasing hard after the fading wind, she had every confidence that it wasn't a coincidence that Tsunade entrusted this task to her--that Shizune had taken time to council her -- that this village could forge a kind-hearted protector like Iruka.

While the hidden village diminished behind her, all lingering doubts went with it. Konoha made her stronger than her insecurities and the time had come to finally prove it.

Impersonal as the mask was apt to be, it provided more for her than the individuality it stole away. When the black chemical remainder of the tracking Jutsu finally began to fade in mid-air it left no trace behind. She took in her surroundings and noted she'd managed to travel what was usually an hour's worth of distance in less than five minutes. Her breaths came in fast and stilted hisses behind her mask. Around her, she discovered, makings of an abandoned temple. She returned the used-scroll to her cloak and soundlessly moved forward along the dirt path amongst the overgrown forestry.

Their intelligence network reported that the 'target' was likely unaware Konoha was actively searching for him. Sakura reckoned if she was lucky he wasn't covering his tracks and maybe even was somewhere still nearby.

She pushed on, examining the temple's withered hangings, rusted over bells and newly lit osenko(4) that simmered in large incense burners. Although it seemed for the most part still and ancient, she couldn't deny the signs of recent use or the residual sense of a significant life force within. Making certain to stay downwind, to keep her breath controlled and her heart-rate at a calm level, she knew even the woodland creatures were unaware of her presence. And yet the very moment she neared the entryway a great spike of energy, like the white center of a small sun, split the air apart, followed quickly by a force of heat so potent and hate-filled it sent her skidding backward.

As the ground fell away and the archway of the temple collapsed overhead, Sakura considered, and not for the first time, putting aside her competent strategies, her continued survival rate may well be accredited to dumb-luck.

* * *

(1) Homura - He serves on the village council, along with Koharu and the village Kage. First Manga Appearance: Chapter 93. First Anime Appearance: Episode 55 

(2) Shishou - Sakura refers to Tsunade as Teacher

(3) Kunoichi - Female Ninja

(4) Osenko - traditional incense


	3. Chapter Three: The Waiting Game

WARNINGS: Spoilers for everything before Naruto Episode 135 Chapter 238. Bastardizer of everything after.

AUTHOR NOTES: Someone asked: "You said in the summery that it was narutosakurasasuke, did you mean it was a triangle or all of them together?"

I will be very direct about this. There will be fucking. Everyone will get laid. Together. With Each Other. The End... well, end of any ambiguity not the story, because there is plot. Oh, yeah, you bet -_there's_- plot.

So far, fifteen chapters and 88,thousand words worth and that's just past mid-point. So if you're here for smut, there is that. If your here for action/adventure, there's that. Character Development/Resolution, yep! Plot twists; you bet!

An ending;... eventually. ;

As usual, there are illustrations for this chapter; (ohshush(DOT)com/fandom/images/superfluous-fluff/2bsch03(DOT)html)

DISCLAIMER: Kishimoto-sensei, Shonen Magazine and all sorts of people at VIZ own Naruto and the premises therein. This is a work of fan-created fiction intended solely for amusement. No infringements intended.

* * *

_"To know what is right and choose to ignore it is the act of a coward."_

_- Kakashi - Naruto Chapter 21, Volume 3_

* * *

_"How could I. Ever think. It's funny how._

_Everything you swore would never change, is different now._

_Like you said. You and me. Make it through._

_Didn't quite. Fell apart. Where the fuck were you"_

- Nine Inch Nails, Somewhat Damaged

* * *

**Chapter Three: The Waiting Game **

"We start from the beginning," the Sannin summarized, "not to relearn but to discover the connections you've missed. It isn't about techniques. It's about disclosure." Orochimaru didn't teach so much as he re-taught and at the end of the equation all the conclusions were different.

.

Item Number 1: Earthen Vessel, representing mineral soil. Ideally his family's ceramic hand basin. It wasn't sentiment exactly...just significant. It was very old, very precious and powerful used in the right hands.

.

Not his father's though, or his father's father, or further back. Fact was no one could recall the exact story or use behind it, certainly no one living. That didn't make it any less significant, just a little less convenient.

And when Konohagakure no Sato hosted an exam its gates were thrown wide-open. Systematically, scattered Shinobi searched out threats in droving crowds. Jovial but aware, they scanned the multitude while their patches of rank warned off any who thought to upset the festivities. The naïve and soft-hearted Leaf Nîns hadn't had enough insight to prevent the Sound invasion three years earlier. They weren't faring any better now.

It seemed without the insignia chiseled into a hitae-ate and an entourage of enemy Nîn they were unaware of the Otogakure neophyte permeating their lines. With his former classmates in the stadium cheering on their comrades, the prodigal Nîn strode undeterred through the fairway. His telltale raven hair and shadowy eyes were kept wrapped securely beneath a colorless cloak. Leaving nothing to chance, any identifiable markings were masked by a low-level illusion technique. He imagined his homecoming would be significant, worthy of either fanfare or warfare. Instead it was lingering in shadows and silently marveling at the immovable landscape altered by the passage of time. Amidst the human traffic moving away from the town center, Sasuke kept his eyes trained on Hokage Mountain observing the artful civility in an exchange of power.

On the Uchiha grounds unlocked doors and dust covered footprints went mostly unnoticed, because it was his to take for granted. While hoards of diplomats hastily wagered on one clan against another, he reread by candlelight ancient text long ago committed to memory. The early evening breeze jostled the frames of open windows and doors to deserted houses. It raised questions in his already troubled mind, but he knew one thing for certain, if discovered by either Sound or Leaf Nîns he would, unfortunately, live to regret it.

.

Item Number 2: Salt Water, representing the elemental & mineral. Personalizing, while helpful to the process, was not mandated. Condiments would do just fine.

.

Outside Leaf it was common knowledge that only one member of the Clan survived the Uchiha massacre. It was lesser known to a handful of ANBU and the now deceased Sandaime that Sasuke was discovered catatonic among the dead. Under their observation, he remained conscious yet entirely withdrawn for three weeks. Medic-Nîns examining the dead surmised that Sasuke stayed with the corpses of his parents for some thirteen hours. Maybe more. With no Uchiha alive to explain the technique used to collapsed his mind so completely, no cure could be devised. It went unproven but assumed that Sasuke remained conscious throughout the their massacre until his discovery.

When he became aware again he was lethargic but responsive, still withdrawn. When he slept unaided by drugs it was fitful. (Hardly a notable improvement considering no one knew what pharmaceuticals could have done in such a delicate mental state.) The handful of ANBU rotating as guards used their unique talents to observe, mend and question him. Separately, each member admitted to the Hokage it felt less like nursing him to health and more like interrogation.

So, Sarutobi, as within his right as the Third Fire Lord, considered teaching the child a secret technique both worthwhile and very old. And since Sasuke wasn't one to ask why, he learned because it was a rare technique. What he didn't tell the Hokage was that he had seen his brother perform it, all of once, and it wasn't something you talked about. It had been labeled 'The Call' the Sandaime explained to the mute boy. An unremarkable title, yet one that carried a sort of weight. It had one objective: to summon pieces to a whole. The body, mind and soul.

The power of it played into science, schooling the billions of nerve endings within the brain. Each nerve cell had branches that transmit and receive messages from other nerve cells. The branches released chemicals, neurotransmitters, which carried the messages from the end of one nerve branch to the cell body of another. In a brain afflicted, something went wrong in this delicate communications system. There was no cure, but there existed a sort of rehabilitation. The conscious mind could not manipulate the physical one, but the spiritual mind wasn't held by the same restrictions.

When done in earnest this technique supplied insight, seemingly otherworldly but in actuality more real than the physical world could provide scope for.

Or maybe, Sasuke reflected silently, it was bunk; after all Itachi used it and soon after slew Shisui, his cousin and best-friend...

Or maybe it failed then too, because in Sasuke's personal experience he had never known the technique to work.

The ingredients were commonplace and easy enough to find. The process relied only on focus. And because there wasn't any feasible reason why he should be unsuccessful at it, he told the Hokage it had worked. But the old man knew better and just gave him candy for his effort. Goddamn candy. On the plus side, even a failed attempt left him feeling better than he had in weeks. It revitalized him, and the candy, thankfully, was sour.

.

Item Number 3: A flawless mirror, representing the world unseen.

.

"Why Konoha? Why now?" Kabuto asked when he finally caught up with Sasuke.

Not knowing how to explain, he hadn't bothered. It wasn't in Kabuto's favor that Sasuke didn't trust or particularly like him. Time and close proximity forged a mutual animosity, but there were particular times when their strained interpretation of a partnership approached hate. And hate was a feeling Uchiha Sasuke reserved for very few.

"You couldn't have picked a more inconvenient place to disappear to, 'Vessel'?" Kabuto pried, testily. Sasuke especially hated the meek way Kabuto pushed his glasses along the bridge of his nose in an attempt to hide the menace in his glare. He'd underestimated Kabuto once before in the 'Forest of Death' during the Chuunin exams years ago.

"You couldn't have been easier to lose, 'Care-Taker'?" Sasuke chastised coolly, not missing a beat. Since then, the expert Medic-Nîn made quite the asset of himself, on Orochimaru's behalf of course, but in Sasuke's personal experienced he believed the touch of someone that two-faced could only ever be toxic.

Another in a long list of things Sasuke just couldn't stand about him was the possessive way Kabuto's fingers latched onto his wrist, monitoring his pulse, while he steered them toward a nearby town for reserves.

Inside the establishment nearest, a bar of some sort, Kabuto-san blathered knowledgeably about essentials "--ordering something with weighty proteins, vegetables and anything really hydrating. I'll manage to scare up some supplementals, medicinals, stimulants, maybe find a handful of soldier pills or--" and Sasuke, accustomed to Kabuto's sort of 'grooming' care, ignored him. It wasn't concern so much as reiterating the best preventatives. He was Sound Village's important 'vessel' after all.

Sasuke didn't believe in God or Buddha but he respected that there was a greater design. So when the first worthwhile teaching he'd received from Orochimaru's and the last words of significance the Sarutobi had spoken with him coincided so perfectly, he couldn't ignore it as a sign. He could have covered his tracks better, could have chosen a hidden path but it was unlikely anyone could stop him now. Not the border guards or the hired thugs whose corpses littered the highway. (Especially not the nuisance physician with the chip in his shoulder.) But then there was the guy at the bar... slight build, not due to a lack of training or the minimum requirement of invested skill, but because he was small of frame. Not short or stocky exactly, and not weak. Certainly not that. Honed. Skin like a strip of linen stretched taunt over marble. And he moved like a fighter, and like a boy, like the wind, sort of, if the wind had an ego. And the room changed just because he was in it, like the sound was drained out of the air. And his hands, his hands were grubby and fingers sort of curled and rounded, making every gesture look childish and playful, but his palms were calloused and scarred. Pieces of netting covering his wrists, barely obscuring the marks of recent violence. He was rubbing his neck in a way that alluded to an ache but it was a trick to make the regulars think he was somehow insecure, maybe lost, probably kind and not at all a lethal weapon like his hitai-ate implied. Uzumaki Naruto.

Sasuke thought that when they met again they would see somewhere nearer to eye-to-eye. It was a lie but a valued one. It was likely he could have been more wrong, but the depth of hurt and anger in those big eyes over the distance brought him to a halt. Temporarily. To think he cared so much, even after all this time. The words he mentally practiced for just such an occasion became locked away the moment Naruto started to move near, fists clenched, aura all but blinding and pulsing with intent to burn down the world just to get what he wanted. Power that potent intrigued him, piqued his envy, and darker things too.

It would have been too easy to get caught up in it. Strength, Power, Naruto and all that. That guy, that idiot guy could rattle his cage like no one else and it made him wonder, -_competitively, childishly, stupidly_- which was strongest now.

When the medic whispered in his ear, "Sasuke-sama," he could have breathed smoke.

"Naruto-kun isn't traveling alone. If you battle it out now Jiraiya-sama will intercede... and as it is, you're still on the mend."

A moment of equal parts clarity and warning. The thought of running hadn't occurred to him until the terminally loyal Kabuto-san spoke. As much as it bothered him to do so, he ran. Just another in a long line of reasons to hate the man.

.

Item Number 4: A lit candle, representing passion and power, fire.

.

_--now--_

Surely, there was a first time he had committed to performing this process. -Search the path, find the guide-. It was lost in a thousand colliding memories. Only it was both sour and inviting.

_--It has to work this time-_

Even Orochimaru seemed certain of his success. And the master didn't think well of many, Kabuto-san was keen to remind. Sasuke was accustomed to the affect he had on people, evident in the lingering leers on the Sannin's serpentine features. His impudence was an additive toward his charms. He long ago lost count of the number of Nîns who fell, willingly, under his blade, bowing obediently to his demands at the cost of their lives. Kabuto-san now included.

_--because everything- _

Being born of a prominent and massacred family labeled him a survivor and not a lucky one. Carrying a name that would ceaselessly lead him back to a destined path. He didn't much believe in chance either, so he knew it would be a mistake to spurn the generous, albeit self-serving teachings of Orochimaru, the fiercest of the legendary Sannins.

_--is part of the greater design-_

The abandoned shrine he discovered in the wood, wasn't luck, it was part of the design. He felt that. Since childhood, he found 'shrines' & 'temples' to be synonymous with 'destruction'. He had waited long enough. The ceremony would start here.

.

Item Number 5: Incense, representing the insubstantial air and the intangible sense smell; a cord connecting the realms of self.

.

For the split-second when the stick of incense caught fire he could recall fables from infancy; the fire bird Ho-Oh, born of flames, devoured by flames. The flicker of memory wasn't congruent enough to form structure but enough to conjure the image of 'endurance'. And then come reminders of his birth-place, his people's remains and he asked himself why he never torched the compound to the ground. He had every right but had never received a sign.

The tendril of smoke lifting off the nub was bright in contrast to the shadow in the room. Unexpected but still inviting.

The ornament caught the light in a way that made the reflected world skew and melt, which made focus easier. The mirror center of the hanging charm was around three inches in diameter. The cord that held it in place was strong despite its age, so the charm didn't move very much, and the reflection was deformed but centered. Focused.

The salt, which was intended to be a curative for aching limbs and pulled muscles, was instead rubbed into an intricately scripted circle, formed under the mirrored charm, around the smoldering nub of incense, and along the lip of the an earthen-wear Saké cup, still moist from use. Technique and customs. If there was ever a distinction, the life of a Shinobi smeared through it with sweat and a bit of blood.

There is a sort of warmth that comes first, intimate and meaningful.

...Like the feeling of Itachi carrying him against his back so his injured foot wouldn't be upset. And the press of each bone in his spinal cord found a perfect space along his breastplate, and without meaning to he mimicked the pace of his breath, like he mimicked everything his brother did.

...Like the way Sakura's shorter sturdy arms wrapped tight around his middle, pressing his elbows uncomfortably into his sides, while her voice vibrated through him triggering control, calm and understanding, and suddenly every thing fell into place.

...Like the way muscle and bone curved around his extended arm, and every hitch in Naruto's lungs feeling like a patch of moist, displaced gravitation, sucking him nearer to something like falling but closer to dying.

Part of him expected to see the image of all these things pressing in on him. Instead the reflection showed a dilated eye, murky with shadows and discoloration, a piercing black center devoid of passion, crystallized and callous. When it blinked back at him, he wondered why he recognized it as his own. It looked entirely unfamiliar, in shape and shade, but the depth of emotion brewing just beneath his surface--They could have been the eyes of a stranger.

.

The sound of footsteps and the scent of blood pursuing carried no true threat as he saw it.

Either Kabuto had returned to him after having killed Naruto, meaning Sasuke would be forced break his word and kill Kabuto out of sheer spite. Or by some impossibly ironic twist of fate, the idiot manage to kill his most loyal and lethal compatriot, AND, in equal impossibility, tracked him down. He wouldn't rise or more rightly he couldn't. Because he hadn't fully recovered his vision yet he still needed the guide. A sign, some insight to cut through the madness.

But while Sasuke's patience was being tried Naruto's was past its breaking point. He felt the power pooling toward the doorway, like a dragging of air and wind into a tunnel of sheer force. A forgotten expression of contemptuous amusement came to Sasuke's face as quickly as all things old and familiar did. As Naruto neared, he swore venomously, demanding, simultaneously low and guttural, that he get up, off his god damn knees and explain himself, and then trailed lower and further from any human language at all. Sasuke blinked slowly and watched the charm sway. If it hadn't worked then he would likely have seen some demon vision of a blond martyr, wielding up a storm.

Reflected at him, instead of himself in his perhaps fevered vision, he saw the swirling of a single leaf. Still and poignant drifting low in the air, carried on a wind that wasn't real. It was the sort of leaf from a tree found in medicinal gardens he'd seen in his youth. It grew in family gardens throughout and died easily when unattended. He knew it well enough to know the medicine to be in the root and that the leaves looked wilted from first bloom. He'd never seen them outside of Konoha, although that had never occurred to him before the moment the roof beams collapsed.


	4. Chapter Four: Following Leads

Illustrations for this Chapter are at ohshush(DOT)com/fandom/images/superfluous-fluff/2bsch04(DOT)html

**WARNING**: (Specifically for Chapter Four - Following Leads) : Contains supernaturally stimulated sadomasochism and auto-erotic asphyxiation. No kidding. Consider yourself warned. Now venture forth brave souls. If I survived writing it, I imagine it should be easier on you to read it... but only marginally so.

* * *

_"Jinsei Iroiro" 'there are many destinies'_

Banner outside Jounin Lounge - Naruto Chapter 43, Volume 5

* * *

_"It's not a matter of luck._

_It's just a matter of time."_

- 30 Seconds to Mars, The Edge of the Earth

* * *

**Chapter Four: Following Leads**

These are the fifteen minutes between when the temple fell and when the forest caught fire.

Sasuke would explain it to himself in a way that sounded right. It was enough to make sense for the moment and he expected little else from life.

"Konoha is a mechanism." Perched on a large bit of stone left over from a toppled pillar, he let the words sink in. He twirled a Kunai carelessly in his right hand, while the left flexed; the fabric wraps were barely singed but it felt liberated without the customary guard.

"Distributors of death and dysfunction," Sasuke continued, almost wistfully, to the rubble that housed Naruto's semiconscious body. "Their idealism is a drug too, which I am a product of."

After a long pause, the gravelly voice of Naruto crawled through the air, "D-don't you think it's just... a BIT selfish… to blame a nation for -_your_- fuck-ups...asshole?" A bloodied hand lifted the heavy tree that pinned him and launched it away.

Sasuke appreciated that, while it physically pained him to do so, Naruto still took the time to call him names.

"I'm glad you've decided to join the conversation," Sasuke said finally, having patiently waited for him to come to. When Naruto fell back against a tree it cracked against his weight. Not enough to shatter or break apart, but enough to show that monstrous Chakra of his was working its magic. The former friend was otherwise impassive and Sasuke clutched the Kunai a bit more firmly.

"But, no" he continued frankly, "it isn't selfish in the least. The greatest warriors Leaf had grew beyond their menial boundaries of duty to home and country and defected... and for what? There is no place for true Masters" Sasuke explained, coming to his feet, knowing because of Naruto's more even breath he was playing possum. Of all things. "There is only death and legend."

"Konoha isn't made up of fuck-ups and murderers. It's made up of Heroes!" Naruto spat, head still downcast, sounding nearly convincing even though he hadn't yet managed to stand. "Good-People," he said, shaking his head like a crazed person arguing with themselves, "who're just... human. They are all heroes."

Swiftly, but not swiftly enough, Naruto darted forward, hands working into seals. Panic paralyzed him as he reached Sasuke, and he was repulsed to discover Sasuke contorting himself, long and snake-like, to wrap around his arms and torso. Sasuke dragged the weapon in his hand across Naruto's body, leaving rivulets of scarlet in its wake. It felt like a boa constrictor was pressed in on Naruto from all angles, except it was Sasuke, dark, powerful and fully enjoying seeping new poison into open wounds.

His dark head rested against Naruto's, chin pressed into the junction of his left shoulder, glancing down over the display of fiery Chakra chasing in and out of slivers cut along his chest up to his throat. "That's rich coming from you," he said in a low calm voice. "Didn't like you much, did they?"

A shudder ran through the blond and in a poof of smoke Sasuke found himself tangled around a piece of tree. -_Kawarimi no Jutsu_-, effective replacement technique.

Indolently, Sasuke stretched himself out, returning to his normal form, and lounged against a fallen beam. He licked the lingering liquid on his blade tip while he smirked upwards at a tree limb, not a great distance away but very high up. Naruto expression of revulsion mixed with confusion was more satisfying than it would have been had he actually managed to poison the brat. He flung the weapon, in warning, knowing Naruto would dodge it easily enough.

From a branch higher and further Naruto could plainly see a black decay spreading from the blade's tip where it struck the tree trunk. Within seconds the tree started to change, began to look as it had been burnt from the inside out. Limbs, high and leafy, turned black before his eyes. He watched thoughtfully, as usual processing actions quicker than words. The doubt in him multiplied. Before, he'd thought perhaps he couldn't bring himself to kill Sasuke. But if Dark Poison and powerful Jutsus hardly phased him--

Despite having dodged the poisoned weapon, despite having jumped away and dropped to a lowered branch on a different tree, it seemed the blackness followed. He looked around for a visible trail, for any sort of connection but only discovered the accelerant proved to be him. Black hand prints were left on every tree limb he touched, in every boot print trailing down to the ground. Naruto panicked, looking down at his person, searching. It was everywhere, all over. The blackness, swallowing him whole, burning him from the inside out. He opened his mouth to scream but blackness filled it. He realized, almost too late, the Sasuke's GenJutsus was just a smoke screen meant to unhinge him.

Sasuke had long disappeared into the trees before Naruto pulled himself together. The sense of him was still strong; the sound of his humorless laughter rang through the wood.

Naruto calculated. Giving chase seemed to be all he did when it came to Sasuke. And what good had that ever got him? He wouldn't do it again this time. He'd make sure of it.

-Naruto closed himself off and reached within--

A wave flashed, like before when there was still a shrine. A divine white light pulsed forth, burning away all blackness. Carnal, powerful and misdirected. Its effects slashed at the forest causing the wildlife to teem, scatter or simply fall away dead.

--but the Kyubi seemed to scream rather than answer the call to arms.-

Spent. Naruto collapsed.

From between winding branches and swaying leaves he watched in the same cold manner that came easily to him, analyzing the tone, agility, strength, emotion, scent, sound and other minuscule tells.

In the Shrine he had been lucky maybe, no, destined to survive. The Justus he was performing put him in a sort of trance, pulling him out of one realm into another, making him half-spirit half-man. This time, he had anticipated it. The same option was not available, but he had sacrificed lives before and for less. He summoned up a Snake, one of Manda's brew, large enough to encase him, stupid enough to die without too much of a fuss. After it dissipated in a hiss of char and smoke Sasuke was left to his thoughts and yet again a temporarily unconscious Naruto. Should have evaluated the lack of necessity of this confrontation. Should have tried to set a trap. Should have tried to ascertain how to use Naruto's monstrous strength to ensure his own demise. Only his thoughts weren't what they should be. His only possessing thought was that it offended him, that he offended Naruto. Not in a regretful sort of way, but in a purely physical way. It made his hair stand on end.

Being outdoors and not confined to the stone shrine, the forest began to burn. Sasuke paid it no mind. Instead he pinned Naruto to a tree with Naruto's own Kunai. Since his own was poisoned, using it would mean this game of torture and humiliation would end far too quickly.

Tactical things were what first come to mind. He considered the skin on the underside of Naruto's bicep, baby-soft and particularly sensitive. Using one of Naruto's shred-tip Kunai under each arm, pushing it to tear through skin and muscle, he pinned Naruto to a still burning tree. He wouldn't die from a wound like this; it was meant to hurt him, severely. The groans he made in protest were a testament to his success. Naruto's position and weight made it hard for him to breathe, let alone move without tearing nerves. Sasuke had dislocated his arms when he started to show signs of waking. The shoulder blades were left bruised purple and misaligned, making them poke out from under the skin. Lacerations coated him in uneven intervals, leaving bright red slivers across his face and neck and what could be seen of his arms. Scorch marks turned his right side shades darker than his left and little fissures of angry orange Chakra danced across the surface, healing, repairing, but not quite fast enough.

"You...made me do this to you."

Sasuke eased back, putting a few scant feet between them, and visibly warred with himself. His tone sounded incredulous, but his expression was murderous. Naruto jerked in reflex to it, which caused his arms to rip further. He growled around a whimper as he fell back hard against the tree. New blood seeped down his sides, pooling under his feet.

For a few seconds Naruto blacked out, but sheer stubbornness brought him back. With a feral glare he tried to pick out Sasuke's position, too far away to hit but too near for comfort, in the landscape of blurry highlights and foggy shadows.

Divided, aggravated, unsure, Sasuke paced; it wasn't expressed with his words so much as it was in the fast and rigid way his hands pulled each cord's clasp individually plucked apart, and then he shrugged off his robe with a warrior's grace. He placed it in a neat pile several feet away, his white, blood and tattoo stained hand running briefly over the fan pattern before he shoved it out of sight. Suddenly and noiselessly, Sasuke appeared hovering beside the tree. Naruto spat and laughed bitterly when he hit Sasuke on the side of his face.

--Take that you, fucking bast--

The liquid that hit the alabaster that formed Sasuke's skin was solid, moist and brown-ish red looking, and not a good sign at all. He didn't wipe it away but allowed it to slide down his face, watching Naruto stare at it with a perfectly mortal realization of fear. Sasuke smiled, licking his lips reflectively while catching a bit of the taste and trail of Naruto's life on his tongue.

It was fear and not hope talking when Naruto said, "You won't kill me."

Sasuke's grin abruptly faded; his lips pressed into a frown, his mass of hair and shadowed lids made his eyes unreadable even as they radiated in the dark. His tone though, his tone gave everything away.

"What makes you say that?"

"You didn't... before?" Naruto snorted, his breath hissing as the effort so obviously pained him. He leaned his head back slightly, his breath was harsh but his voice was hushed. He didn't talk about that day, not to anyone, no one knew. No one had the right to.

Sasuke nodded, understanding. It was hardly his proudest moment but then it was one of his greatest.

What had been the shrine was now a clearing saturated in their Ki, their blood, their weapons, their techniques and their monstrous Chakra. It was as if someone had turned a switch off and the land now held no natural magic or mystery, just a playing stage and a captive audience. Half looking away, Sasuke drew in a breath, his face grew thoughtful and distant, and his stance grew tense. His fist eased, his fire-singed fingers straightened and his eyes glowed.

Naruto felt he would pass out again; he tried to focus, but it felt like watching fractured images slide over one another, pieces of Sasuke. The friend and brother-in-arms, and then there was the avenger, the betrayer, the murderer. Had any individual impression been more dominant Naruto would not closed his eyes to fight back tears, and certainly would not have tried once more to stand up and--

"It's been a long while, Naruto," Sasuke's voice dripped dark with amusement. His eyes moved skimming features and details too closely. Sasuke leaned up against him, and pressed the back of his forearm into Naruto's chest, driving him further upright against the onslaught of pain. Nearness and pain, things one and the same to their friendship.

Naruto once more willed himself not to black out, not to cringe, not to snap back or growl out some half-thought retort. It took longer for Naruto to open his eyes and this time when he did they shimmered in a color akin to hate. Sasuke's absurd nearness brought him well within range of Naruto's glaring hurt. The strength his stare held was nearly physical, but not quite, like nearing an open flame. The heat of it washed over Sasuke causing him to break out in cold sweat. Fixing eyes with Naruto was like staring into an abyss... and Sasuke had no intention of looking away.

Sasuke may have immobilized Naruto but it was becoming very clear he was no longer in control. Funnily enough, that near, as his fearsome mind was evidently becoming fractured, he wasn't scary. Not in control. Not scary. In such close proximity he was just -'That Bastard'- and it reminded of last time-- causing Naruto's heart rate to increase, his mind to cloud and the memories to come forth.

The last time. They'd been like this -close, angry, teeming, trying, searching, fighting- like this. Within arm's length. Within battle. The sense of it came rushing back on them both. Along with a sense of regret, out weighed by the sense of a challenge. If they had to do it all over again--?

"Maybe I thought of something better, just for you." Sasuke said so quietly, as if it took effort to stay in the present, to not get lost in the past.

-If they had it all to do over again, that place, that fight--if something, anything had been different, which one would end up dead? Would it be both?

"Fuck. You." Naruto replied, his voice equally low but in no way small. It carried that same sense of melting of promise, of reckoning, waves of something bright burning and flesh searing.

-If it had happened any differently would that have decided things finally? What it was to win? What it meant to lose?

If the earlier blow to Naruto's spine that had wrenched his arms from their sockets hadn't got his full attention, the firm exploratory hand on his chest certainly had. The gesture mocked and reminded of when Sasuke's -chidori- had run him through.

"I intend to," said Sasuke derisively, dragging his hand steadily lower, a slow focus of electricity following in its wake, searing the top-most layers of skin. Agonizing Naruto without much effort. Like an animal fighting his leash, Naruto threw his head back. His throat clenched, face reddened, and he writhed away from Sasuke's voltage grip. Sasuke closed the remaining gap between them, his left elbow crushing Naruto's jugular, imprinting that hideous stone necklace into his collar, his knees pinning Naruto at the hip and groin.

The forest fire created teeming walls of smoke overhead, closer by the second but somehow miles away. The savage intensity that Naruto reeked of swallowed them both and cut off the world. On their little patch of earth, saturated in blood, the electricity that Sasuke emitted made the air turn thin. Power condensed, compiled, expanded, stimulated.

Naruto struggled within. While he usually blamed the demon-fox for the hard-on he always got during brawls, what really ensnared him were chemical red eyes bearing down at him, scrutinizing, antagonizing, challenging him, like before, the same, but different.

Sasuke was making a play for power, it always was and Naruto didn't delude himself to think this was tender or right or predictable even. Kyubi whispered random and heady things at his mind that kept him aware, painfully aware, and kept him from convincing himself he had gone insane when Sasuke didn't obscure his triumphant little smirk when Naruto's arousal jabbed against his thigh. It was an obvious rush for Sasuke to shape his reactions to this extreme. Sasuke liked watching the struggle, humiliation, and panic in him. Sasuke tore the electrical connection off without warning and covered Naruto's mouth and nose, before a whimper could escape. Even smothered, the pleading echo of it rang through Sasuke's perfect ears, gratifying him for the time being. It wasn't torture exactly, it certainly wasn't a killing technique. It was a challenge to bring the monster to the surface, and Sasuke could see in Naruto's expression, in facial marks, bruising around the eyes and still expanding canines, that his method had worked.

Sasuke pulled slightly just to watch the monstrous power course through the shuddering vessel. A boy, who happened to be Naruto, who happened to mean too much to him, who happened to be grinding upward against him, grimacing fiercely, -Jinchuuriki-, who happened to be a vessel of a demon pure, power unattainable. It was gratifying, it was the biggest turn on in his whole miserable life. It was special, and not 'you kill me or I will kill you' type of special it had been before.

Like in the shrine, like in the forest, the savage white fever burst from Naruto's skin. It felt red without needing eyes to see it, it felt alive. And there was no dodging it this time. It would consume Sasuke, if the Kyubi hadn't intended on him to live, for now anyway. And while Kyubi articulated it, shaped it, the sentiment was purely Naruto when he spat out -"You-Fucking-Cocktease"- seconds before tearing himself off of the tree he had been pinned to.

Had his arms been realigned Naruto's movement might have been a bit easier to read. No matter, it was chakra-born, wraithlike nails that clutched Sasuke and flung him skidding across the woodland floor. The consuming heat pressed down on him, causing his breath to quicken like a trapped animal skittering against the walls of his cage. Friction, fists, claws and sudden dampness smothered him. Sasuke would never be so undignified as to black-out but he cursed himself inwardly for having let his guard down even slightly and for not fighting the weak-willed impulse to wipe the dirt from his eyes. He needed to see this.

Somewhere far off the sound of thunder tore through the air, wiping clouds away. Water fell through sky in a rush overhead.

Naruto moved over him, urgently yanking at Sasuke's clothes. The discomfort of bunching fabrics was forgotten to the quick displacement of air and skin when Naruto's body crushed down on him. Sasuke sucked in an aggravated breath and tried again to wipe his eyes clean. Naruto backhanded him, probably harder than he intended to but with his lame arms, still bleeding slightly and only beginning to mend, it was difficult to judge how hard was too hard. The same logic accounted for the threat, idle but true, claiming he was going to split Sasuke, "in two". Small mercy being the blow cleared up his vision some, even if it felt like his jaw had been shattered.

Every attempt Sasuke made to adjust Naruto forced it back, either by weight or sheer presence. Finally Naruto's wounded, furious and clumsy movements managed to flip Sasuke onto his stomach. It was all something of a powerful blur, no one gesture Sasuke could commit to memory but somehow everything he could recall as Naruto. Sasuke could remember clearly that closeness would be lethal, but he had grown immune to the fear and drew his legs further apart, using his calves and knees to pull Naruto closer and closer and closer.

A slew of unintelligible curses spilled raged above him as Naruto aligned himself over Sasuke. While his Sharingan might have warned him of the movement nothing could prepare him for the sensation, skin breaking, bone shaking, penetration-- it should have hurt more, it should have hurt more--

The snap of Naruto's limbs realigning was lost over a growl, of passion, of pain, of things very different but the same.

Sasuke raised himself to believe that closeness was akin to weakness. Naruto, breathing steam and fury, reminded him of that. But when it came to close range combat different rules applied all together, and it was deemed strategically sound to give a little ground it if gave your enemy a false sense of security. Especially easy to manipulate because he was Naruto. Naruto, the hero, the idiot. Naruto who was both friend and foe. Moving with little precision, moving within him, under the skin, where maybe he had always been but never so damn close as when they were fucking or fighting, which was the same thing, inevitably.

Sasuke choked back what was part grunt, part obscenity and dug his fingers into Naruto's biceps, tearing new wounds into old scars. Friction, course and steady, carried Sasuke beyond what was left of control. Sex, or fucking, however fulfilling, was never so gratifying as the reckoning, terminal and great, of a greater demon eat away the edges of perception. While climaxing may be the most inviting way to meet a mortal end it was also the least likely. It wasn't part of the plan. Instead Sasuke summoned up something significantly darker, colder, abominably more powerful and tainted than hatred. Cursed seals could be contraceptives by way of happenstance.

Naruto, himself in mind much more than body, retracted in immediate recognition, as Sasuke's skin became tainted sickly gray, cursed leaden and corrupting, and limbs like wings extended and encircled Naruto, wrapping around the last of his resistance and strangling his resolve.

It was soul defining and corrupting, this fight, always the same but somehow different. Every time one rose, in power, in presence, the other had to fall away. Meeting head-on meant a challenge, meant something worthwhile and always only one breath from losing yourself in the climax. Disgust and intrigue were simultaneous, Naruto shoved away from Sasuke, putting several wary feet between them. In the Valley of the End it was monstrous and terrible, corrupting, this transformation, redefining where their limits lay, where their friendship was laid out, what power meant to each of them. In the dirt floor of the forest, far away from civilization, it was merely a new level to an age-old game.

"That," Sasuke began, panting and grinning simultaneously, which obscured the words somewhat, not that Naruto needed to hear them to know. He'd heard them often enough in his nightmares, "That," went on Sasuke, "didn't hurt, Naruto."

"Shut up," Naruto lashed out lamely, dragging himself to his feet, staggering to a stance, ready to strike.

Sasuke took longer to raise himself, but his poise was liquid and perfect, always absolutely perfect. Around him, the forest floor was scorched with vibrant, tainted Chakra, that danced and laced its tendrils and was the only show of the Uchiha's impatience. The falling rain could do nothing to wash its filth away.

Sasuke laughed abruptly with false light, "I'm not ready to lose."

Naruto's darkened determined eyes became demented, they glared promise of new violence at him as he sprang from a standstill into the air. His gnarled and bestial hands fell into seals familiar and techniques hidden. Sasuke knew Naruto couldn't have been more engaging had he challenged outright. Maybe he really did want to die. Hell knew, if the curse seal didn't do it Naruto might just. If there was ever a fact more deceptive in its comfort, it was that time and the differences would never alter that for them.

The same, but different.

While Naruto summoned up a thousand different memories, a hundred thousand different lessons learned, a million reasons why committing this crime should be wrong, none of it kept him from acting. That is until the air caved in and the ground rose up to meet his face.

What could be perceived as luck or an act of god was actually a skillfully executed NînJutsu, that had three components; the nearby lake, a precise topographic target and a mighty force to boost it, and one goal; misdirection. Putting out the fire in the forest was just a plus.

Suddenly the air carried a dubious sort of stillness, molecular and carnal simultaneously. Rain falling through the air seemed heavier, smelled headier, felt more solid for all its liquid state. The atmosphere surrounding felt too real to be real, an illusion, so clear and perfect you could nearly make out the particles of water, individual molecules of hydrogen and oxygen colliding in mid-air, binding, circulating. The impact of each drop stimulated the next, the dirt, the air, the world and it was nearly more than a trained Shinobi mind could understand.

When the aggressor approached he searched his brain for a solution to this ambush; he'd witnessed a similar trap before at age twelve in Wave-Country. The Sharingan would be useless, it'd be a waste Chakra to even try. In the reassessment of recollection he knew 'team work' had been the only resource last-time. The likelihood of trusting someone at his back was as irrational as assuming his adversary wasn't just any other countless pursuers of late.

As if responding to his thoughts shadows formed on the surface of the forest ground, creating the shapes of enemies emerging. By function and design it was obvious they were Bunshins, solid or shadow made no difference under the circumstances. Five at the very least, distributed in equal and strategic placements between Naruto and him. Some carried scrolls and exerted masked techniques and focus into the earth and air, two held station beside each man holding firm the genjutsu of swirling wind and leaves that ensnared them. One figure, more assertive than the surrounding ones, drew nearer, a Senbon cradled firmly in its gloved hands. Later, when he would question why he hadn't countered the ambush, instead he would find himself remembering the details with clarity, asinine and numerous as they were. He'd blame them for clouding his mind and keeping thought and logic from being proper bed-fellows. He'd never admit it was neither hesitation nor paralysis, but the third implausible option of not wanting to fight back.

While a mask and cloak kept the identity of the newcomer shrouded, determined over-bright eyes caused an ominous sense of familiarity to run through him. Held captive, nearing demise, he observed swaying weight under the billowing cloak, the cut of the tattered uniform, the womanly placement of hitae-ate strapped securely to a curved waist, the expert movement of the smooth limbs, the bitten fingernails on the exposed fore and middle fingers of each hand, the turn of the weapon and lack of hesitation while delivering a crippling blow. With pitch-dark wide calculating eyes, he sensed no fear, not from Naruto, himself or their assailant. There was a misplaced contentment manifest even as blood carved from his throat poured out, albeit short-lived when in an instant the landscape twisted and evaporated into nothingness.

* * *

Bits of dialogue is Sasuke mostly quoting himself, in Naruto Volume 26, Chapter 231, Inane Translation


	5. Chapter Five: The Circle Offense

Author's Notes: Illustrations for this Chapter are at ohshush(DOT)com/fandom/images/superfluous-fluff/2bsch05(DOT)html - Further notes are at the bottom and there are loads of them. Thank you for reading.

* * *

_"No matter how dangerous the risk... there will be missions you can't decline."_

Ibiki - Naruto Chapter 44, Volume 5

* * *

_"I must be an acrobat  
To talk like this  
And act like that"_

- U2, Acrobat

* * *

**Chapter Five - The Circle Offense **

+

Naruto woke up with a horrible crick in his neck and a squirrel gnawing at his hair. Grumbling he pulled himself to his knees, scowling in all directions. He was in a damp and empty forest, scarred with obvious signs of violence, missing most of his uniform, weaponless and alone. He -needed- to stop waking up like this. Normally Ero-Sennin was at fault but as the fog lifted from his mind, an intensity rose and he set his jaw tightly.

"Sasuke," he growled contemptuously, the scent of his former teammate thrumming thick through the air. Naruto bristled instinctively, spinning around to attack, only to confront the view of a bleak uninhabited forest. There were no signs of a sneak attack; more alarmingly came the realization of why Sasuke's scent was so strong. Blood; not enough lost to be lethal on its own, but if the aim had been right, if Sasuke had been knocked out and if the weapon was deadly enough, than it was entirely possible--

"SASUKE!!" Naruto roared, in no particular direction, "You bastard! You better not be dead!!"

Not that he was afraid for the guy's welfare or that he cared about him so much, but if anyone was going to off the bastard, it was going to be him. No one else had the strength, no one else had the know-how, but more importantly no one else had the right!

Recalling one of his first lessons, Naruto reflected, -'_a true Shinobi seeks for the hidden meanings within the hidden meanings'_-. Something in this area will answer the who, why and how?

If the past was any indication, it meant he owed thanks to Kyubi that he'd healed faster than Sasuke, probably woken up first too. Not that the Kyubi had aided much in preventing their sneak attack. He was knocked out cold, as was Sasuke, so their enemy had to be very strong. _-If only he could remember--_ Well, since it was likely that he was first to arise, it meant he could get the drop on Sasuke if he acted fast enough, even if he wasn't alone. No, certainly not alone. Naruto prowled the clearing, --_foot prints, Chakra impressions, cracked branches, a chase and--_ analyzing and trying to sense his surroundings; he found leaves, dirt, trees and a discarded Senbon needle, more than likely intentionally left behind.

Naruto plucked it up, not caring that it might carry poison; he could heal from poison. He frowned at the red fluid that ran off its tip. Evidence dictated Sasuke wasn't among allies.

A still foggy memory played tricks on him, made him try and remember whom he knew who carried weapons like this, whose signature it was, was it familiar? The first person he'd ever seen wield this weapon had also appeared as a Hunter-Nîn, right? Maybe it was 'her' weapon of choice? Naruto rubbed his face, trying like hell to clear his thoughts.

No, the first one seemed like a 'she', but turned out to be a pretty lethal underestimation--

Haku, soft features, pale round cheeks, eyes closed in sleep... no, in death. So, no, not a threat, plus that was years ago, so many years ago; why would something from so long ago feel so familiar?

God, he hated waking up like this, so thoroughly mixed up. Last thing he could recall felt more like a dream than a memory because--because it felt too upfront, deceptively clear, the figure cloaked in hunter-Nîn garb, dropping down to kneel beside Sasuke where he lay on his back, sprawled like a discarded toy--the more he remembered more it angered him--the expression she wore while she poked and prodded him; she wasn't hurt but she wasn't okay either. He growled, trying to shake the cobwebs free of the memory, because it was familiar but different, because she was longer, rounder and prettier. Far prettier than he'd imagined she could be.

"Sakura-Chan," he murmured, baffled at the realization, both then and now--_where had she come from, what was she doing, why was she here and where was she now_--in his recollection, he hadn't needed to see her actions to draw the conclusion her intentions weren't pleasant. Sakura had done 'something' to them, whatever it was, his mind was still clouded and it had likely been the same 'something' that knocked them unconscious then,... and now, he wasn't fairing any better. The 'something' was still with him, even though he was alone in a blood stained landscape. Sasuke left no trail, but there was the scent of cherry blossoms vague enough to seem non-threatening, except Naruto had begun to know better, to see the 'hidden meaning'--

-_'No'_-, he reminded himself, confusion and realization building in his throat into something nearly choking, something tasting a hell of a lot like fury, -_'no one else had the strength, no one else had the know how_-- but more importantly no one else had the right to kill him..._- except maybe her.'-_

* * *

Blood-thirst, -_Ki_-, a killer intent, a sense of which consumed and enveloped; a driving intensity, none of it good. A Shinobi didn't need to master this to be respected as a Ninja. They mastered it to be powerful, to be feared, to render their victim useless with little more than a glare.

"Knock it off," Sakura grumbled, waking from where she was lounging on a nearby windowsill.

Sasuke didn't have to announce he'd woken up; his Ki made everything living within a hundred yards flee for their lives, except Sakura. That wasn't to say that she was brave, although she was, but she knew 'intent' to kill wasn't the same as 'ability'.

"I'm serious," she warned from beneath her mask, coming to stand by his bedside. Yellowish serpentine eyes slid and regarded her, narrowing while a glaze lifted and he recognized where they were and what it meant.

"You," he sneered threateningly, then said nothing while he tried to attack, but couldn't.

"Ah, well," she admitted with a shrug, "I guess the mask is pretty pointless by now."

She removed it; her expression carried none of the false light-heartedness her tone did.

"I just wanted to portray the seriousness of this scenario to you, -_Uchiha_-," she used his family name as a device. It worked partly, it shocked him out of his misaimed observations, drove them back to where they should be. "Fact is, I've got a mission to complete and I need you to help me. Well, part of you anyway."

"Why should I help you?" he answered in humoring disbelief, "You've forcibly restrained me here, of all places, and now you're asking me to aid you. You're not exactly winning any points of valor here."

"'Restrained?'" she repeated, indulging him, "I haven't restrained you, I've crippled you."

Eyes widen in panic, nearing gold in color, acknowledging she spoke the truth.

"I snapped your fifth and seventh cervical vertebrae. You're paralyzed from the neck down. The damage should be permanent but a specialist in Medical treatment..." she paused significantly as she came to sit beside him, irrationally close, emphasizing his helplessness, "someone like me, can treat you, maybe even fully heal you, if it's caught early enough."

Sasuke groaned, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to figure out what to do or say next. This was worse than fighting that unreasonable Naruto. Sakura was methodical, he'd have to outthink her, which meant playing her game for now until she slipped up. If she slipped up, which wasn't very likely.

"I hope you enjoyed the freedom you had outside of Konohagakure," she said evenly, her eyes skirting over his face, restlessly, as her hands reached up to brush aside hair from his face. All without touching his skin. She seemed determined not to directly relate to him. She sighed, sounding bored, when she continued, "Because if this mission doesn't go down the way I've planned, than this is what you have to look forward to. A lifetime, wasting away, abandoned within the walls of your childhood home, no one to seek you out, no one to care."

"I. Get. The. Point" Sasuke spat.

"Oh," Sakura replied in a small voice. "Well, you always were a fast learner."

* * *

Fury tasted bitter on the wind and it never lasts long, especially when it's so entirely unfounded. Naruto realized this when he noted that he'd gone full-circle...he was chasing shadows, needing to move but without a direction. Head bent in thought, he stopped and clung to a branch, nails digging deep.

His Chakra wasn't flowing right, that was to say it wasn't flowing at all. Pulling on it was like trying to make a sleeping limb respond. He realized this after the third time he'd tried to focus his Chakra into his feet to cling onto a tree-limb or to hold his place on a trunk and nearly fell to his death as a result... fury helped then, but it was bestial and crazed and confusing. And then he'd black out again. Without the powerful irrationality of the Nine-Tails to rely on he realized finally that his Chakra simply was not supplying his demands. It dizzied him to try, which led to the conclusion that something was sealing it away from him. Another important piece of evidence he'd overlooked and it was painted all over him.

Chakra, his Chakra, and more than likely Sasuke's Chakra, had been permanently sealed.

If that had been Sakura's intention all along it didn't explain the needle or the excess of blood. It did explain why the forest was now a clearing, where remnants of their misaimed and malfunctioning Chakra had charred the land. Her absence only made it obvious that her scheming wasn't done; if she wanted to kill Sasuke she wouldn't have had to disable him, but if her aim was to capture...

Naruto's nails dug harder into the tree limb he clung to, which was fraying under his grip. He had to read the evidence right this time; he'd misread it the first time and it led him to getting knocked out again and no closer to finding Sasuke... and in turn Sakura. The question of 'could she' had already been answered, she obviously 'could' bring Sasuke in on her own, given that Naruto apparently provided a big enough distraction. But that didn't answer the question of 'would she'? He shook his mane in aggravation, she wouldn't, he thought repeatedly, trying like hell to convince himself. She wouldn't. They had a promise, she wouldn't take this from him, she just wouldn't. They'd had a promise. But then he'd negated on his side of their promise, but he was a jerk and she was a better person than him, at least he thought so. So, given that she was capable of bringing him in, but more than likely wouldn't; where than would she be likely to take a hostage?

Naruto looked out over the horizon than closed his eyes gently, tranquil in thought. At least, they were alive. He couldn't say why he knew this, only that in his gut he knew it to be absolutely true; it was just a matter of finding them. _-If only they'd left him something to follow--_

* * *

"Why are we here?" Sasuke asked finally when the stillness of the home was too familiar to endure any longer.

"Comfort is important to your recovery," Sakura answered from across the room while she dragged a chair over to his bedside. "That is 'if' you're to recover" she grinned impishly.

Sasuke pointedly stared at the ceiling. This was all familiar, laid out, and he found himself reading nonexistent patterns in the panel work.

"You are my patient after all. So, I figured 'all the comforts of home'," she shrugged, taking a seat.

"This isn't a home," he observed coolly, "it's a prison."

"Yes, that too," she acknowledged; she shrugged back her cloak, revealing a Tunic, darker than anything he was used to seeing her in. Gloves covered her arm from bicep to fingertips, obscuring but not completely hiding the lacework of henna stains on her skin. She used the cloak to cushion the hard wood chair for extended comfort; looked like they were going to be here for a while.

Sakura's eyes dropped to his white robe, lined with red kanji, folded neatly at his feet, showing the strangely inverted Uchiha Clan's insignia, which he had boldly stitched by his own hand. The Fan, the Uchiha Family trait was the manipulation of fire. The mind of an Uchiha...and yet he had inverted the color and therefore the context, a blood red base, pitch black fan, contrasting sharply against the robes harsh white material. She wouldn't touch him but she was perfectly comfortable fondling his personal items.

"I learned a lot about your clan's history, -_Uchiha_-," she said more toward the jacket than him, "It's a sad history really and I'm talking way before your generation. It's just..." she sighed, pulling her hands away she crossed both arms behind her head. She glanced past him toward the window where she had been before. She gathered her thoughts, trying and failing to seem unfazed by his presence, "if you had to die, and the last bits and pieces of your family be put to rest, it makes sense that it be here."

Sasuke breathed out, scoffing slightly, "You're even worse than that -_brat_-. You know what I am, what I need to do, but you're wasting time doing this anyway."

Sakura smiled sadly, "Yeah, I know what you are. That's exactly why." Her eyes were distant, while they locked onto something abstract across the room; "If you can't be saved now... then it's better to kill you, right? Exert some control over destiny."

Sasuke focused on escape, or at least tried to, but her being so near, and in this place of all places, was distressing. He should have burned it. Across the room, he knew what caught her fascination and he silently wished he'd thrown it away when he'd had the chance; the picture, the last remnants of what Team 7 was. This place was full up with dead and dying things. He'd come too far to be considered among those statistics.

"Can't you see the patterns for what they are?" she said, her voice sounding nearly desperate for a moment, but that jaded tone returned to it in as little time as it took for her to sigh. "No, of course not, you always missed the most obvious things, like our friendly Jinchuuriki and Kakashi's aim with you."

This time Sasuke had to struggle to keep his face impassive. Sakura was both clever and observant, so she wasn't one to throw information around lightly. Mentioning these things was her way of showing he still somehow had her confidence, not in the way of trust but like a diary that had to endure her teenage ramblings.

"Just look at the patterns," she said with an absent gesture to her hand, "everything that was ever important to you died here. Why not me? Why not you?" She laughed suddenly, like the most amusing thought had just struck her, "I think subconsciously it's why you didn't kill Naruto at the Valley of the End, because that place just wasn't appropriate enough. Not personal enough for you. This place, though maybe it isn't that monumental, but it is home. I'd thought you'd appreciate that."

Eyes narrowed, Sasuke glared at her profile, his eye color dimming as he contained his anger. "You said you wanted my aid."

"Yeah," she replied but seemed resolved to say nothing more.

"Like this," he reminded irritably, "there isn't much I can do."

"Ah, that," she answered with a partial smirk. Sakura stretched, leaning to reach toward the nightstand. On it was a bottle of his father's preferred unfiltered Saké, a cup and an odd number of scrolls lying near it; Sakura had obviously had enough time to familiarize herself with the place. It was disturbing, but more worrying than upsetting, not that he was willing to admit it.

"It's a lot simpler than you think, you see," Sakura continued after finishing off a cup with practiced ease, "do you feel that pulse, that something different churning within you? Go on, dig deep."

Sasuke strained to focus on his 'self'. It wasn't easy, partly because having Sakura around was distraction in itself. Also because every time he reached within all he could feel was helplessness, paralysis, the absence of Chakra. He closed his mind and relaxed as much as he felt he could afford, "I can't tell, there's too much..."

"Noise?" she offered, "Interference? Yeah, I'm noticing that too. But I'm sure you've noticed a bit of a difference since you've woken up. That the headache you'd had for weeks now has started receding."

Sasuke slowly opened his eyes and glared in her direction. Damn it if she wasn't right.

"I'll take that as a yes," she said smugly, "See, I borrowed a little bit of Naruto. A little bit of me too, and placed it inside you. Not a physical thing either, just an impression, like a shadow in your mind. It's just how the technique works, you see."

The first question he wants to ask is 'why?' or more rightly, 'WHY THE HELL?' but that'd just play into her hands.

He breathed deeply, calming him, "What do you aim to do?"

"I...I don't aim to do anything," she said morosely, "this isn't about me. It's about you. What do you aim to do with it?"

She tilted her head slightly, a stray hair grazing her cheek while glassy eyes glanced over his features. "Still don't see the pattern, do you? Damn it, I'll try a different approach."

She sat up abruptly, leaning forward to stare him directly in the face; Sasuke sucked in a breath to keep calm, hating his paralysis something lethal. If only he had his hands, he could perform a million and one Jutsus, -_'Precious Jutsu'_-, as a defense, but now he was forced to simply remain a target to her tactics.

"Do you hate me?" she asked frankly. Her voice didn't tremble when she said it but it was smaller than what it had been. The woman before him merged momentarily into the girl he remembered.

"I'm starting to," he answered, more honestly than he'd expected too.

"Just annoyed with me then, of course," she said, rolling her eyes, nodding her head thoughtfully before she continued, "right, of course. Do you hate Naruto?"

Sasuke stared blankly. Sakura of old was too self-involved to fully see the dynamics that once made up their team. The Sakura before him certainly was not.

At his hesitation, the corner of her pale mouth turned upward into some bitter resemblance of a smile, "Do you love him than?"

"No!" he instantly replied.

Her smirk lengthened as she reached to pour herself another serving, "I wonder if you're even capable of it."

"Shut up," he bitterly retorted, eyes screwed closed at the sight of her, at the sight of this place and the fact that he'd really just like to reach out right now, a few measly inches and just...

"I hate you sometimes," she abruptly added, cutting off his train of thought, looking over at that damn picture again, "I really do. You turned your back on me."

The cup hovered near her lips, while she evoked some pain or hardship she seemed determined to focus on. She stood, skirting around the foot of the bed. She plucked up the framed photo, leaned back against the bookcase, jutting her hips with a lazy grace. She propped the bottom of the photo against her waist and looked down over it analytically while she sipped at her cup.

"Only you knew how much I cared for you," she continued, her voice low so he had to strain to hear it. "We all cared for you, but you left anyway. We saw the best in you but you gave us your worst instead. All that hate..."

She smiled sadly when she placed the photo back on the bookcase, leaving it face down like she'd found it hours earlier. "You know, I've seen failed techniques before, self-inflicted being the worst sort. I know all the signs. You've turned into a hollow shell of what you could have been and now... well," she crossed her arms, the empty serving cup clutched tightly, contradicting her posture of ease, "now you're paying the price aren't you?"

It sounded like she was judging him, no, more accurately she sounded like she was trying to sound judgmental and not lost, because somewhere in that fogged over expression was the remnants of a girl who cried over him in his dreams. Maybe she tried to bury that girl with alcohol or maybe she tried to evoke her with it, but either way the façade she was trying so steadfastly to maintain was beginning to crumble around the edges. Maybe she had no plan at all, and this was as far as she had thought; to catch him and keep him, and then what?

"But you see," she continued, sounding lost in thought rather than the strategic and levelheaded Shinobi she needed to be, "hate, like love, is blinding. It's why Naruto couldn't believe you'd walk away, it why I couldn't believe you'd ever willingly return."

She smirked again, maliciously, and Sasuke was already weary of that expression when she said "it's why Naruto wants to catch you and keep you and screw you till you atone for all the pain you've caused."

Okay, maybe she was even more aware than he'd given her credit for, but playing victim wasn't his nature, so he resolved himself to glare at her. She, of course, decided to interpret this as an invitation. She returned to his beside, opting to sit on the edge rather than the chair. Her hand came up again to wipe away strands of hair that refused to stay out of his eyes. "It's why I wanted to snap your neck and bury you in this morgue of a household. It's all wrapped in a bundle of sameness."

From this close he could see the features he had trouble remembering, the exact shape of her pale and nervous mouth, the insolent lift of her chin, the way her hair was fair but not thin, it hung weighted against the curve of her cheek, cut shorter in the back (privately, he missed the length), but most especially the way the muscles around her eyes slightly tightened. These nuances used to warn of on-coming overly dramatic tears or episodes of voluminous rage and tantrums like he'd never seen from a girl. The edgings were still there but she didn't succumb to them.

It certainly took a while, but she seemed to have mastered the twenty-fifth rule of Shinobi conduct. Although it was pointless to hide from someone who knew her as well as he did. He could still tell; she was grieving for him. He'd seen it before. A part of him, deep within his mind was relieved to have had a chance to see it again before he died.

"It's enough power to do the impossible. It's strength." She sounded wistful. Her hand trembled, clipping bone-carved earrings when she withdrew, continuing, "Strength you don't have, because you're empty."

"...Your philosophy isn't sound," he quietly accused, "it's filled with holes, just like this whole scheme of yours."

She breathed out raggedly in something meant to be the shape of a laugh. "It isn't a Philosophy, it's partly facts and mostly faith. Blind-faith, or in your case paralyzed-faith. " She laughed weakly at her bad-joke and ignored his glare.

"I would rather kill you than have you leave again, fractured and fucked-up as you are," she stated frankly while she placed the bottle and cup on the floor off to one side, near the head of the bed.

"I can save you, but I won't," she admitted while she reached up to steal one of his extra pillows. "You have to want me to, but you don't. You resent me for ever caring for you, just like you'd fuck Naruto for the sake of destroying him." Airily she talked, while she propped the pillow against the footrest, making a slope to rest on. She poked it and pressed it till it was firm enough for her liking, than leaned against it making the bed shift with the combined weight of her and her hidden weaponry. She folded her still boot-clad legs under her, curled, half-sitting half-laying at his feet, staring blindly in his direction, but not looking at anything in particular.

Sasuke sighed, wishing he could press his hand to the side of his head where a headache was newly forming. "You're not making sense."

"No, not to you I guess," she replied, shifting and curling to avoid actually touching him, "because you'd still rather be blind to the obvious. To the very possibility..."

"Of what?"

"Of being saved." Her eyes didn't carry any of the over-bright hopefulness he'd expected. She stated it like a fact, a sad predictable fact, sounding just as unenthused as the times she had addressed him by his surname.

Sasuke laughed bitterly, amazed at the realization, "You think I can really be saved?"

"I know it," she mumbled tiredly, eyes closed slightly, weighed with sleep, "but only if you want it. But you don't, so no, I guess no one wins." She shrugged and tugged at her long gloves, pulling them to bunch more comfortably. If she were more sober or more awake she probably would have realized that it would have been easier to take them off, although it wasn't something he was willing to point out. He'd had quite enough of watching this older Sakura butcher memories of a softer, caring and infinitely more pliable Sakura.

"So, stubborn -_Uchiha_-," she muttered, sounding mirthful, "you're so much dumber than that -dobe-. I think you always were, but I ignored it because I loved you then."

"But not now?" he angled, faintly.

"No, not right now," she answered, sounding detached. "See," she started again poignantly, eyes closed, making languid gestures with covered hand, like she was pointing out something obvious, "sameness. It equals out. I loved the boy of promise so much that I hate the man you've grown to be. Do you get it yet?"

He glanced hidden markings on her skin over edges of fabric, a dark stroke at her collar-bone just beneath the tie of her cloak, a crescent shape on her brow, petals patterning over fingertips and bits of bicep edging her full-length gloves. Sasuke's eyes were drawn to them, the familiar cherry blossom outline, mapping Chakra concentration points, on her otherwise flawless skin. No, he was very glad she hadn't taken anything else off, this Older Sakura wasn't how he wanted to remember her, lethal, unreasonable, manipulative and deadly. It helped that she was sad though; he could sense that off her like smelling rain on the wind. 'You can never go home again', as the saying goes. He had his teammates to thank for making that a reality.

"Sakura," he started, without thinking to. Her eyes narrowed, she silently glared toward him, alert and intense for all her laxity. "If you're going to kill me, get it over with. Torturing me will prove useless."

She smirked, evilly, than shifted slightly to look at him better, "Talking, like this, is torture to you?"

Sasuke sighed, closed his eyes, exasperated.

Her voice was light; she wasn't laughing but she was not far from it. "Then maybe you're not as thick-skinned as I thought. You're coming disturbingly close to not being entirely hopeless."

"Bold words from someone who can't bring herself look me in the eye," he responded, staring pointedly at the ceiling.

"Right, right," she nodded, her weight on the bed shifting slightly when she threw an arm over her face, "Well, we all have our inner demons. You're not so god damn special."

Sasuke would have liked to think the reason why he was staring at the ceiling was because he was theorizing how to get out of this mess, and not at all because the more he watched her, the more he hated her and the more he hated, the more he missed what she used to mean to him. Admitting that would mean admitting too much and it would be pointless to fill his head with this sort of sentimental drivel, especially now when the mental fog had only just begun to clear. With his mind finally his own, he should move on to the other great ambition of his life: Revenge.

Except his mind wasn't fully his own anymore... there were impressions he could feel, pulls he could succumb to, an awareness that was nearly sickening. Restlessness colored red and gold, prowling and searching, aimless and angry. Naruto. She was in there too, maybe not as prominent due to proximity and intoxication, but he could sense it, her presence a shade mixing of pink and blue, amethyst nearly, hurt, sad and completely remote. He glanced down to where she was curled up beneath him, close but not touching. He had the urge to want to reach her and then he was thankful for the paralysis because he wasn't sure if the impulse was intent to harm or comfort.

This whole stupid scenario was just too uncomfortable, too idiotic for his liking. How typical of Konoha's forces, why attack head on when you can super-impose sentiment onto everything?

"I'm going to sleep now," Sakura spoke softly, "feel free to wake me if you think you've found a solution to our stalemate. Keep in mind, the longer we wait the direr your condition becomes."

* * *

Sasuke stared at the ceiling, willing her to disappear, willing this to go away, willing he could close his eyes and sleep, some genuine, restful, peaceful sleep without a darker presence pressing in on him, without the voices that crawled around his head, the things that destroyed the bits and pieces he was, or had been, and inevitably drive him insane.

When he could think of nothing else to calm himself he listened to her breath; he wouldn't look at her, but listening to her gave him something to focus on, something to listen to other than tormented thoughts. Even if at the worst times she could be annoying, she was at least useful.

...Unlike that idiot, that powerful, untapped, aimless, shiftless, moron Naruto. Surely that idiot could talk some sense into her; well maybe not sense but he could talk to her, get her to do something, anything other than drink and sleep. Getting through Sakura's pained indifference wasn't really an option for him. It was armor for her and like all armor, the direct approach never worked.

Naruto was as indirect an angle as he could fathom, and Sakura, manipulative as she'd grown to be, admitted to using part of him as well. He may not have had his Chakra to ascertain the specifics but it seemed logical enough, that if he was sensing Naruto, sensing his confusion, his displacement, than maybe Naruto could sense Sasuke in return, even over the distance. And what was distance to Shinobi anyway?

Their battling had happened on the outskirts of Konoha, in a deserted shrine of all places. It was a hop, skip and a jump away, but would the dimwit know where to go?

Sasuke sighed, no, that logic was pointless and verging on hopefulness. He couldn't rely on the blond, not now, not ever. He never understood anything, always took things to heart, always too laid back to be critical when it mattered. Time hadn't put a dent into his ambitious optimism, which as much as it seemed useless was a credit to the idiot.

Not that Naruto was ever very intimidating, but Orochimaru was worried that his recklessness would cost the Sannin too much in the end. Although, Itachi had thought otherwise... and with that thought Sasuke's eyes bled from dim-orange to shimmering red, not Sharingan, but spiteful enough.

Itachi had seen assets in Naruto, assets that Naruto seemed then incapable of tapping into of his own free will. Recent events certainly proved that Naruto had learned draw on that demonic strength, however to what degree was still unmeasured. Also, underestimating Naruto always ended badly, even if it was Sasuke who was pulling the strings.

Sighed disparagingly, he realized how simple this would be -_if only he could reach out and just signal--_

* * *

Sakura sat up slowly, stretching with languid ease, ironing out the kinks.

"Forty-five minutes," she said suddenly, and a smug smile pulled at her lips, while she glanced around the room, assessing things. "It wasn't much of a nap," she admitted with a sigh, standing to double-check the straps on her thigh holster, "but it's going to have to do. You always were such a fast learner."

Sasuke's blank face tightened, eyes slightly widened in recognition; he'd fallen for her ploy. Sakura patted his knee sympathetically before she turned to the door.

"I've got a couple of last minute things I need to set up, but if you need me," she grinned cheekily and tapped the side of her head, as an example, "you know how to summon me."

* * *

It was a mental hiccup. It wasn't a proper technique. To make the Justu manifest, it wrapped around the concept of 'if' which wasn't a concept a Shinobi entertained.

--IF I can make this leap, IF I can fight this enemy, IF I can surpass this hurdle, IF I can reach this goal-- No Shinobi was familiar with 'if'. They had the will to do or not to do; to kill or to run away. Analyze and decide. IF wasn't considered; leave it to the cleverest Kunoichi in her generation to intricately wrap a psychological technique's effectiveness and weakness around the concept of 'IF'.

It suddenly felt so obvious it might as well have bitten him on the ass. It was abnormal for a Shinobi to structure anything around a concept as unreliable as -_'IF'_s-, and -_hope_- and -_faith-_- but if lowering himself meant a chance at escaping then it wasn't beneath him. After all, crippled and imprisoned was no way for an Avenger to achieve his means.

Sasuke remembered himself; an Avenger, an intensity, an unrestrained sense of hate, a focus so clear and precise any distraction from the goal is immediately crushed underfoot. This was all that was left to him, all he ever had to begin with, but no means with which to act. Naruto, however, was a variable of considerable potential --_'if' only he could be made to see.-_

The ends of his pale lips pressed into a smile of triumph as a plan formed in his mind's eye. Notably, traps were only as effective as their bait, which was where their strength was based, and wherein lay their weakness. And so Sasuke figured, following the method of traps, it was just as well that he could manipulate these empathic threads provided, maybe even to wrap them around her throat till she choked.

He focused his mind with pin-point severity, his bruise-tainted eyelids closed, and behind them his irises' color shifting in intensity. He pulled on the hate he held in supply, on the focused determination his vengeful mind provided by and pressed against the sense of Naruto.

_-If only Naruto can sense this--_

Like adding a log to a blaze, Naruto devoured it wholly, willingly, Ki and all, because it was Sasuke and only Sasuke had access to Naruto like that. Far underneath it all a beast threatened to consume him as readily as the blond boy's rejected spirit and Sasuke thought he might, -_'if only'_-

Solidified picture in mind, a loathsome visualization articulating everything about Sakura; weak, pathetic, manipulative, changed, an obstacle, a threat...

_-If only he can see her through my eyes--_

There was a flicker of resistance while Naruto's consciousness combined with everything Sasuke visualized Sakura as being. Sasuke strained to focus while the line of definition blurred into something illegible. Thankfully, underneath Naruto's restraint was something readably familiar: 'passion'. It was enough.

_-If only Naruto's passion would consume him, than Sakura will no longer be a threat, no longer be an obstacle, no longer be--_

Mapping out their location, imagining it like a line of oil, for Naruto to catch hold of like the spark he was, to burn brightly through the Jutsu binding them, drawing nearer, angrier, hotter by the second.

* * *

"All done," she announced, a mock brightness in her tone when she reentered minutes later, "and you?"

Sasuke glared at her, hate-filled eyes keen in their glowing intensity. Sakura smiled; she'd sensed his ministrations as steadfastly as if they were her own, but it was fun to make him guess how far she'd set her claws in.

"Not yet than? Should I give you another minute?" -_Not that she would._-

He made a derisive sound and resolved himself to staring back at a far point in the ceiling. Sakura seated herself in the bedside seat, sighing gratuitously while situating herself. She wasn't making the racket to annoy him, she was making noise because the place was too dead without it, the tomb too real rather than symbolic.

Sakura stared at her hands for a long moment, concentrating on something unseen, sensing out the shifts taking place. Sasuke's mental outcry, Naruto's obedient and approaching response, the sense of something that tasted nothing like satisfaction to know that her plan was coming together. There really were very few options left for her to choose.

Finally, she pulled on her cloak fully and grabbed her discarded weapon up from the back of the chair. She yanked her loose collar and strapped her sheathed sword to her back in preparation, flexed her fingers a number of times, mentally preparing herself. It wouldn't be long, but it still seemed like an eternity.

"If you could be anywhere in the world," she asked suddenly, never glancing up from the backs of her hands, "where would you want to be right now?"

"Anywhere but here," he answered quickly, voice indifferent. She only marked the voice because it was familiar; she missed his expression entirely while he analyzed the smile that flickered across her lips.

"That's not a real answer."

"What does it matter?"

"It doesn't really," she replied very quietly, like she wasn't even talking to him, but rather to herself. "Just killing time, I guess."

Sasuke watched her close off again, her expression slackened in profile and her mind tucked away, hiding from him while still swimming underneath his thoughts. He could try and goad her, anger her like she had effortlessly angered him, but sensing her numbness leak away into nervous concern was fascinating, in that whole 'holding-a-magnifying-glass-to-ants' sort of way.

"Snow country," he answered unexpectedly. Sakura blinked once, not looking toward him, but her confusion was visible. "It never snows here in Leaf. It's interesting, watching ice masses thaw, slowly revealing what time has seen fit to bury."

The earlier false smile jumped to her features, while she listened intently to him speak. Her hand flexed and relaxed, expressing her unease.

A sound like nothing audible reached them simultaneously. Both Sasuke and Sakura's eyes sped over in the direction they knew Naruto was coming from; Konoha's Main Street. With his temper and his speed, it wouldn't be very long at all. Sakura reached up both hands and pushed them through her hair, shaking out her lethargy.

"Yeah, me too, -_Uchiha_-" she said haphazardly, unsheathing her blade, checking its readiness and then returning it to her back, "I wish I were anywhere but here, too."

+

* * *

**Firstly**; Alright, that looks to be it for a while. Chapter Six is giving me brain explodies. That, this fever I can't get rid of, this oppressive heatwave, plus the general wibbles over writing angry sex. . . well, it could be a while. Not "Two Years" sort of 'a while' but I can't say how soon either. Reviews are always encouraging but questions help to! They really do 'cuz they get me to be more direct in my narrative. There are clues 'like whoa, so many' in these few chapters already that it sets a good groundwork for where the story will go, and your feedback gets it there. So thank you 3

**Secondly**; Oh, and buco-buco gratis to my beta, who I won't link to because I want no one to steal his genius but me!! He always makes me sound significantly less like an idiot, he fan-girls accordingly and he adds Neat-O notes like this to my chapters:

_"Sasuke's spine being broken at the 2nd cervical vertebra as I'd previously had it ...would mean he wouldn't be able to breath, ...Breaking below the 5th would allow him to keep breathing while leaving his arms mostly useless and his hands completely useless. ... (:D If you want to get incredibly technical, he would still be able to move his arms away from his body and weakly bend them at the elbow, but that's pretty much it.)"_

How great is feedback like that? I mean _really_. I loff on my supportive, excitable, eternally patient Beta!! He's OMEGA-BETA! I seriously would have given up at Chapter Two without him. -gives a round of applause-

**Lastly**; If you have an LJ add community./fareviler/ for art, fiction and various updates that these lovely free-but-flawed archives won't administer to. I promise, though I may never be consistent, I will also never be boring :D


End file.
